Hybrid API Management

Hybrid API management allows you to have the benefits of a SaaS environment in addition to the greater control offered via on-premises solutions.

In the traditional pure cloud model of API management, all API calls are directed through cloud gateways. This approach can have the following inherent limitations:

• Inefficiencies when both the API backend and API consumers are not in the cloud.
• Security concerns associated with API data going through the cloud.
• Need for the backend to be exposed to the internet or VPN.

Hybrid API management allows you to overcome these limitations. For a list of important benefits of hybrid API management, see Benefits of hybrid API management.

WSO2 API Cloud supports hybrid API management by providing the capability to have API Gateways in a private data center, while having most of the API management infrastructure including management user interfaces, developer portal, and analytics in the cloud. This allows you and your subscribers to always have access to the API management infrastructure without any maintenance overhead.

The following diagram illustrates how WSO2 API Cloud supports hybrid API management:

In hybrid API management you would generally have the API Gateway and possibly the traffic manager component in a private data center. All other components will be in the cloud. 

Now that you have a basic visualization of how WSO2 API Cloud supports hybrid API management, let's take a look at the benefits of hybrid API management.

Benefits of hybrid API management

• High performance: You can have your API gateway close to your backend services and API subscribers. This avoids the cost of extra hops to the Cloud and back.
• Lower total cost of ownership (TCO): API management operations such as lifecycle management of APIs, subscribing to APIs, defining various policies, performing analytics on API events and generating statistics are handled in API Cloud, while actual API requests are routed through the Microgateway instances. This leads to lower total cost of ownership.
• Rapid deployment: Deployment is faster because of the simplicity of the Microgateway. The only requirement is to have Java or Docker installed infrastructure to deploy the Microgateway.
• Capability to deploy anywhere: You can deploy the Microgateway on any cloud infrastructure as well as on any container management system such as Kubernetes.
• Better security and compliance: API calls and payload data does not leave your network. This results in better security and compliance.
• Effective connectivity:  Since you can deploy the gateway anywhere including on your own network, there is no need for VPN or any other network connectivity solution.

Now that you understand the basics of hybrid API management and its benefits, let's try out the Microgateway of WSO2 API Cloud. Click here for instructions on how you can quickly download, configure and run the Microgateway.

If you want to run the Microgateway on Docker, see Deploying the Microgateway as a Docker Container.