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Integrating WSO2 API Cloud with Heroku

Owned by Former user (Deleted)
Last updated: Oct 16, 2020
3 min read

Heroku is a platform as a service (PaaS) that allows you to build, run, and operate applications entirely in the cloud. When you create applications or services in Heroku, you will want your applications and services to interact with external applications and services, serve as backends for web and mobile applications, integrate with social networks etc. In today's interconnected digital world, such interaction is essential to bring business value to your Heroku applications and services. With the current trend where enterprises are becoming more data-driven and API-centric, the best approach to facilitate interaction is to expose your Heroku services as APIs. To do this, Heroku has to support APIs management capabilities.

You can integrate WSO2 API Cloud with Heroku to provide API management capabilities for your Heroku applications and services. WSO2 API Cloud supports all API management capabilities that you need to gain the best business benefit out of your Heroku applications and services.

Following are the API management capabilities you get for your Heroku services when you integrate WSO2 API Cloud with Heroku:

  • API publishing tools to design, prototype, import, and test APIs, work on new versions of APIs as well as manage the API life cycle.
  • A feature-rich developer portal where developers can locate your APIs, try out the APIs, read the documentation, subscribe as well as manage OAuth keys.
  • A fast and scalable API gateway, which can transform incoming calls and data formats into what your backend needs, and vice versa.
  • Built-in security and throttling policies to define who can access your APIs, manage their OAuth keys, set roles and scopes as well as impose throttling and rate-limiting.
  • Ability to view API statistics, graphs, and also the possibility to configure alerts to monitor APIs.
  • Flexibility to scale your service depending on your requirement.

Now that you understand the benefits of having API management capabilities for your Heroku applications and services, let's take a look at how you can integrate WSO2 API Cloud with Heroku.

The following topics describe two possible deployment options that you can consider depending on your business requirement. Click on a topic for details:

Deploy WSO2 API Cloud as an add-on for Heroku applications

The WSO2 API Cloud add-on allows Heroku users to have easy access to an API management solution as a service.

The following diagram illustrates how you can have WSO2 API Cloud as an add-on for your Heroku applications:

This is the best option when you have a business use case where WSO2 API Gateway needs to be outside the Heroku deployment to work as an external layer that secures access and enforces policies.

For a tutorial that demonstrates how to expose and manage a Heroku backend using the WSO2 API Cloud add-on, see WSO2 API Cloud as an Add-On for Heroku Applications.

Directly deploy WSO2 API Gateway on Heroku

WSO2 API Gateway, which is available in the Heroku elements marketplace allows Heroku users to quickly deploy WSO2 API Gateway on Heroku without leaving the web browser.

The following diagram illustrates the direct deployment of WSO2 API Gateway on Heroku:

If you have a business use case that requires minimum average response time to serve an API call, and you do not need to connect to other API management components, the best option is to deploy WSO2 API Gateway as your own Heroku dyno.

Following are the benefits of deploying WSO2 API Gateway as your own Heroku dyno:

  • High performance: You can have the API Gateway close to your backend services and API subscribers. This avoids costly extra hops to the cloud and back.
  • Better security and compliance: API calls and payload data does not leave your network. This results in better security and compliance.
  • Effective connectivity: Since your API gateway runs on Heroku, you do not have to set up a VPN or any other alternative to expose your Heroku backend to the internet.
  • Low total cost of ownership (TCO): Most of the infrastructure is run and maintained by WSO2 for you.

For a tutorial that demonstrates how you can directly deploy WSO2 API Gateway on Heroku, see Deploying WSO2 API Gateway on Heroku.