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API Portal

Onboard & Manage API Developers

 

To get maximum value from their APIs, enterprises need ways to attract, onboard and manage developers. The Layer 7 API Portal delivers a complete, secure, on-premise or cloud-deployed platform for developer onboarding, engagement and management.

 

Developer Onboarding

The API Portal helps enterprises get their APIs in front of developers, quickly. It provides a Web-based Developer Portal through which developers can discover what APIs are available, test the functionality of these APIs, learn best practices from other developers and self-enroll to publisher-defined API account plans. The Portal also manages the distribution of API keys.

 

Developer Enablement

The API Portal can be used to manage both external and internal developers. It gives publishers simple ways to: document APIs; stimulate developer communities (e.g. by creating forums); test the functionality of APIs through an integrated API explorer; provide developers with visibility into their API usage, activity and ranking relative to other developers.

 

Developer Monetization

The API Portal also empowers API publishers to compare developers, define service plans and collect usage metrics (for insight into performance and for billing purposes).

 

The Layer 7 API Portal is designed so that basic API policies and lifecycle operations can be controlled from within the Developer Portal itself, by a product manager, evangelist, marketer or platform strategist. More advanced policies can be pulled dynamically from any Layer 7 Gateway, including the SecureSpan API Proxy. The API Portal ships with an integrated content management system (CMS) for easy customization and corporate skinning.

The API Portal can be run in the cloud or on-premise. A lighter-weight, SaaS-only version has recently been introduced under the APIfy.co brand. It is currently in beta. 

 

Screenshots

 

CMS

API documentation templates and out-of the-box developer resources (such as forums, the API Explorer etc.) simplify creation of the Portal.

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API Publisher

The API Publisher: associates exposed APIs with available service levels; makes it possible to define APIs as either private or public; automatically creates an entry in the API Explorer.

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API Explorer

Expose live API endpoints, so registered developers can interactively explore and discover how an API works.

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Developer Registration

Gate developer account and application registration in order to understand who is building what kinds of applications against which APIs, before granting API keys.

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Analytics

Graph and compare API, application and developer performance in order to understand who to reward, where to invest and which elements may need troubleshooting.

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EBook: 5 Ways to Get Top Dev Talent for Your APIs

 

Grow an ecosystem of visionary developers creating leading-edge apps

Opening APIs to developers outside your organization can enable the creation of mobile apps that add value to your products and information assets in innovative and often unexpected ways. This eBook explains how to engage developers who will create truly valuable apps. 

 

Read the eBook >>
 

Press Release: Layer 7 Launches Version 2.1 of Its Developer Management Portal for APIs

 

Tutorial Videos: Developer Management with the Layer 7 API Portal

Manage API Developers in House

 

Publish any number of APIs at no extra cost. Issue, manage and revoke your API keys or security tokens without the need to involve a third-party service that is out of your control.

 

Ensure Security & Compliance

 

Deploy enterprise-strength security and access controls and address key compliance concerns (such as PCI-DSS) via pre-integration with the SecureSpan API Proxy.

 

Extend Market Reach

 

Pull in partner, affiliate and referrer traffic via APIs or allow these parties to embed your services and content within their own online properties.

 

Grow Revenues

 

Support API business models such as “internal chargeback,” “monthly subscription” and “pay per-use”.

 

Understand API Usage

 

Deliver comprehensive API reports to internal and third-party developers, as well as to API owners, security officers and other key stakeholders within your organization.

 

Minimize Time to Market

 

Rapidly provide developers with API documentation, discussion forums, support, developer resources and more.

 

Manage Developers

 

Create tiered (e.g. Gold, Silver, Bronze) plans that allow you to appropriately reflect the value of each of your developers.

 

Manage APIs

 

Create a service level for each API, assigning rate limits, pricing, SLA criteria and more in order to match your business goals.

 

Manage API Keys

 

Define API keys to fit your security requirements, then manage and distribute these keys from a secure, on-premise device.

Developer Community
Registration
  • Developer organization sign-up
  • Application registration
Reports
  • API Usage (allows developers to track and meter their API hits, latency etc. to measure usage against quotas)
  • Application Usage (allows developers to answer the question
    “Which of my applications is most popular?”)
  • Response Times (allows developers to answer the question
    “What is my user experience like?")
  • Availability (allows developers to answer the question
    “Is my SLA being adhered to?”)
Documentation
& Resources
  • API Explorer and versioned interactive documentation to help developers discover and quickly understand how to use APIs
  • Sample applications, code widgets/examples, sample requests/response pairs and other resources to help developers speed the creation of applications
  • Forums to foster community among developers
  • Forums, integrated messaging, FAQs, issue resolution etc.
Client-Side Code
  • Automatically generate client-side code in most popular programming languages, including JavaScript, node.js, Python, Ruby, PHP, Objective C, Java and Curl
API Key Management
  • Assign an API key to each developer application
  • Gate, assign, suspend and revoke API keys and OAuth secrets for each developer application
 

Content Management System
Style Sheets
  • Support for global, partial and per-section CSS
  • Ability to insert custom code on every page (e.g. for Google Analytics)
  • Functionality for interactive and dynamic content via JavaScript
Content Management
  • Create, edit, publish and roll back Portal content
  • Programmatically migrate content from development to test to production
  • Create and modify menus
Dashboards
  • View key information at a glance
  • Define a personalized default dashboard for each user
Custom Fields
  • Create custom fields to capture more personal and application-related information when a developer registers for an account or requests a new API key
 

Business Management
Account Plans
  • Stratify developers into tiers (e.g. Gold, Silver, Bronze)
  • Define tiers by assigning features (e.g. support plans, cost per-month)
  • Define quotas per tier to differentiate between tiers and even to charge for greater access 
API Plans
  • Define unique and/or standard plans for each API
  • Define SLAs, pricing, rate limits and other features for each API plan
API Analytics
  • Summary reports: API Usage, Developer Usage, Utilization Rates etc.
  • Detailed reports: API Methods, Latency, Error Rates, Availability etc.
  • Ranked reports: Data on the most valuable developers, APIs and applications
Alerting
  • Send alerts based on API utilization rates, latency, errors etc.
API Owner Groups
  • Allow each business unit to manage its own APIs, independent of other units