API development is usually done by someone who understands the technical aspects of the API, interfaces, documentation, versions etc., while API management is typically carried out by someone who understands the business aspects of the APIs. In most business environments, API development is a responsibility that is distinct from API publication and management.
WSO2 API Manager provides a simplified Web interface called WSO2 API Publisher for API development, publication and management. It is a structured GUI designed for API creators to develop, document, scale and version APIs, while also facilitating more API management-related tasks such as publishing API, monetization, analyzing statistics, quality and usage and promoting and encouraging potential consumers and partners to adopt the API in their solutions.
Shown in the diagram below are common life cycle activities of an API developer/manager, supported by the WSO2 API Publisher:
To access the API development-related functionality provided by the WSO2 API Publisher, you need to create user roles with specific levels of permission. In this documentation, we use a role by the name creator to carry out more development-related tasks, and a role by the name publisher to carry out more management-related tasks. For instructions on adding the creator/publisher roles and assign them to users, refer to section User Roles in API Manager.
Before accessing the Web interface of the API Publisher, make sure you run the API Manager using instructions given in section Running API Manager. Once the server is up, type the following URL in your browser to access the API Published Web interface.
https://<YourHostName>:9443/publisherThe API Publisher log-in page opens as follows:
You can log in, you need to create a user and assign it specific permissions as described in section User Management. Alternatively, you can also log in to the API publisher as an administrator, by using the admin user that is available by default with the password also as admin. The default admin user has administrator privileges and can perform any operation.
Once you are successfully logged in to the API Publisher, refer to the following information to start developing and managing APIs.