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Enabling IBM API Connect on IBM Power

By Isgandar Valizada posted Tue December 17, 2024 08:35 AM

  

Intro to IBM API Connect

IBM Cloud Pak for Integration
IBM Cloud Pak for Integration (CP4I) is a hybrid integration platform that provides a comprehensive set of integration tools within a single, unified experience to connect applications and data across any cloud or on-premises environment.

IBM API Connect
At the heart of CP4I’s API management capabilities lies IBM API Connect, a comprehensive solution for designing, developing, managing, securing, monetizing, analyzing, and socializing various kinds of APIs.

IBM API Connect on IBM Power!
Recognizing the growing demand for flexibility and the strategic value of leveraging Power servers for enterprise workloads, we have worked on enabling IBM API Connect on the Power (ppc64le) architecture installable on Red Hat OpenShift Platform v4.14 and higher.

The newly enabled Power version is available with the API Connect v10.0.9.0 alongside Cloud Pak for Integration v16.1.1.

API Connect on IBM Power

API Connect on Power is made up of three components:

  1. API Manager (APIM) is the central component of API Connect, where developers design, publish, and manage APIs. APIM enables complete lifecycle management, including versioning, deprecation, and retirement of APIs, giving organizations full control over their API ecosystem. By porting APIM to Power, we enable seamless administration and monitoring directly on the Power platform.

    illustration of APIM on Power
    illustration of APIM on Power

    Among other things, the Power version also includes recently introduced API Discovery and Governance subcomponents.

    API Discovery* employs data source collectors configured to integrate with gateways and ingresses thus helping to discover the APIs in your organization and copy them into API drafts to enable lifecycle management.

    * Note: Collectors API Discovery continue to be supported only on the amd64 architecture.

    Governance on the other hand encompasses the standards, policies, and practices that guide an organization's development, deployment, and usage of APIs.

  2. Developer Portal of IBM API Connect acts as the bridge between API providers and consumers. It allows you to have an integrated web-based platform where application developers and API consumers can discover, explore, socialize and subscribe to your APIs.

    Screenshot of API Connect Developer Portal

    Once a Developer Portal is enabled via the API Manager and API Products are published, application developers can explore and utilize the available APIs.

    Screenshot of API Connect Developer Portal 2
  3. Analytics component of IBM API Connect lets you monitor your API usage by providing the capability to filter, sort, and aggregate your API event data. This data is then presented within correlated charts, tables, and maps, to help you manage service levels, set rate limits, establish controls, set up security policies, manage communities, and analyze trends.

    Screenshot of Analytics component of IBM API Connect

Split architecture

The API Manager, Developer Portal, and Analytics can now be deployed on a Power OpenShift Container Platform (OCP) cluster, while the API Gateway continues to run on amd64 infrastructure.

In this setup, all supported components are deployed on a Power cluster, with the Gateway hosted on a separate amd64 cluster. Connecting the two API Connect instances is straightforward, thanks to well-documented procedures.

Installing the Gateway in a separate cluster is common in APIC production environments since the Gateway often operates independently from other components.

In our example, we deployed the API Manager, Developer Portal, and Analytics on Power OCP running on IBM Power Virtual Server, while the Gateway was deployed on amd64 OCP running in IBM Virtual Private Cloud.

We then interconnected the two API Connect instances using the documented procedure. This allowed us to manage APIs in API Connect on Power and consume them through the Gateway running on amd64.

Deployment using the Platform UI

Once the prerequisites including Platform UI are installed according to the Cloud Pak for Integration documentation, it is then fairly easy to instantiate an API Connect Cluster of a sample configuration using the CP4I Platform UI as seen below.

Screenshot of Platform UI
Screenshot of Platform UI 2

Conclusion

The enablement of IBM API Connect on Power servers marks a significant milestone in expanding the hybrid capabilities of API management.

With seamless integration into Red Hat OpenShift on Power, enterprises can now leverage the robust performance and scalability of the Power platform for API lifecycle management.

This advancement empowers businesses to achieve greater efficiency, governance, and insights into their API ecosystem.

References

Instructions for deploying an API Connect cluster or subsystems on IBM Power are here.

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