Bryon Kataoka (CTO, iSOA Group) is leading the training of our consultants on the latest IBM API Management Solution, API Connect v2018. Each week they review capabilities of APIC from installation to tooling, to customization, and we want to share some of the key takeaways.
This week we are focused on what is new in API Connect v2018 and, more importantly, the different environment installation choices.
Bryon shared with the team that APIC v2018 is considerably different from V5. V5 was built on top of the Cast Iron runtime. APIC 2018 was rebuilt based on a microservices architecture, supporting Kubernetes and containers out of the box. This enables APIC v2018 services to be accessible via its own API’s. As Bryon mentioned, IBM is taking its own medicine by exposing APIC v2018 microservices as API’s. This new environment gives clients the flexibility to support a variety of deployment models, from on-premise, cloud, or a hybrid deployment, where you can place different capabilities across your different environments. As an example, APIC v2018 allows you to deploy the catalog behind your firewall but have the gateway and analytics running in the cloud (e.g. AWS, Azure and others).
A new key function is that APIC v2018 is built on Kubernetes tooling, enabling installation using Kubernetes. If your strategy or current environment supports VMWare that is ok too, as IBM delivers an OVA file as well. Be aware that much of the tooling inside the OVA is still Kubernetes based, so expect some learning curve around the deployment and management of the new release.
The choice comes down more to your current operating environment and flexibility between on-premise and cloud deployments.