Introduction
Applications and their interaction with APIs play a crucial role in networking business processes and services. With the goal of making the development of enterprise applications more efficient, enabling further integrations and improving the interaction of systems, the management of an international IT group issued an API First strategy. Thanks to our support, the Apigee Hybrid API management platform was successfully introduced and the appropriate infrastructure solution was created for it with Anthos GKE On-Prem.
The Challenge
The demand for a better API strategy had several reasons:
- Lack of monitoring and control mechanisms
- Lack of visibility of internal APIs
- Lack of standardised processes
- No full CI/CD process
To solve these problems, an API management platform needed to be implemented under the highest security and process management requirements. The goal was to keep API management internally consistent and to improve machine-to-machine (M2M) communication. In addition, a “single-pane-of-glass” solution had to be created to clearly display data from various sources in a dashboard.
For regulatory reasons, the API platform needs to be hosted in the company’s own data centre. Since an API management system is not a purely technical solution but also changes the way many employees work, it was further necessary to align the implementation with existing processes. At the same time, there needed to be flexibility for future process improvements, and the existing infrastructure and expected usage needed to be taken into account when designing the solution. At the end of the transformation, it was necessary that there should be standardised, verifiable and automatable processes. To achieve this, the entire API landscape had to be analysed, prioritised and grouped.
The Solution
The choice for introducing an API management platform fell on Apigee Hybrid. The user-friendly platform offers the ability to handle hybrid processes and was well-suited for the IT corporation's requirements.
A prerequisite for installation in this hybrid scenario was initially establishing a suitable infrastructure. Cloudworthy implemented this using the hybrid cloud management platform Anthos. Specifically, Apigee was deployed on Anthos GKE On-Prem, a hybrid cloud software that integrates Google Kubernetes Engine into on-premises data centres, enabling Kubernetes clusters to run anywhere.
For the implementation of the API management platform, company guidelines were created in the further course and the following points were defined:
- Access Permissions: How they should be structured, which teams work on which APIs, and how cross-team collaboration is facilitated.
- Security Standards: The required API standards, control mechanisms, and the approach to security monitoring.
- Developer's Guide "Working with Apigee"
- Deployment and Testing Processes
In order to implement the guidelines, Apigee Hybrid’s technical circumstances had to be taken into account. Our Google Business Unit was able to support the company in this process by identifying and discussing best practices in the respective areas in a series of workshops. Suitable guidelines were then jointly formulated on this basis. In an agile process, our experts also oversaw the technical implementation and thus helped to combine the possibilities of the API management platform with the process requirements.
Results and Benefits
The introduction of the API management platform greatly simplifies the IT group’s work with APIs. Processes for creation, security and monitoring have a significantly higher degree of standardisation and automation, which accelerates the processes and minimises errors. With our expert help, the IT group’s corporate strategy was successfully integrated with the requirements of the Apigee Hybrid API management platform.
About PCG
Public Cloud Group (PCG) supports companies in their digital transformation through the use of public cloud solutions.
With a product portfolio designed to accompany organisations of all sizes in their cloud journey and competence that is a synonym for highly qualified staff that clients and partners like to work with, PCG is positioned as a reliable and trustworthy partner for the hyperscalers, relevant and with repeatedly validated competence and credibility.
We have the highest partnership status with the three relevant hyperscalers: Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google, and Microsoft. As experienced providers, we advise our customers independently with cloud implementation, application development, and managed services.