![\"Hybrid](\"https:\/\/devoteam.info\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/1_Hcrw15fBT5coTPAdwNBmHw.jpeg\")
<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\t\t\n\t\tWhat exactly is Hybrid API Management?<\/b><\/h2>\n
In order to understand what Hybrid API Management is, it is crucial to first understand a bit more about the general architecture of API Management systems<\/a>. To put it at a high level, these systems typically consist of two main components. There is an administrative component and a runtime component. The administrative component is the part where the API team (platform administrators, API developers, operators) can manage the platform. They can onboard new APIs, grant access for developer apps to particular APIs and monitor the platform usage. The runtime part handles the processing of the actual API traffic. Runtime consists of the actual gateways, also called policy enforcement points. They process the API traffic, while enforcing policies for security, logging, mediation and traffic management.<\/span><\/p>\n We now know the simplified separation of API management components, but let\u2019s look at the traditional deployment models as well. This used to be either a full on-premise or at least self-managed installation or a vendor managed installation in their data centers or cloud. Both models obviously have their own advantages and disadvantages. For example, self-managed installations give you ultimate flexibility and ownership of the platform and the data in it, while vendor managed installations unburden operational challenges like software upgrades, scaling and availability. Some on-premise platforms are quite hard to install and operate. On the other hand, companies might not want to move to vendor-managed, for compliance, data privacy or latency reasons.<\/span><\/p>\n Now let\u2019s have a look at Hybrid API Management architectures. These are actually offering the best of both worlds. The administrative components are managed by the vendor, while your runtime components can be positioned anywhere. Communications between these components are obviously essential: to exchange API configuration information as well as API usage data. Having the administrative component managed but self-managing the runtime component unburdens the operational overhead, like the scaling, availability, and upgrades but does give you the flexibility to process your API traffic close to the back-end. Latency, compliance, and data privacy are then less of a concern.<\/span><\/p>\n But that\u2019s not all! Your IT landscape might already become hybrid as well. You might have a mix of some self-hosted components and one or more Cloud platforms<\/a> like AWS, Azure or GCP<\/a>. You wanted to proxy your APIs close to your back-end components, yet still manage your APIs centrally. This is also possible with Hybrid API Management. You can still centrally govern and protect your APIs in your (multi)cloud strategy!<\/span><\/p>\n Looking at different offerings in the market, we see that support for Hybrid API Management architectures is present in more and more offerings. Some products (like Akana<\/a>, RedHat<\/a> 3scale) inherently support it by their distributed design, while other vendors are bringing a new product especially for the Hybrid API model (Apigee<\/a> announced Hybrid last November).<\/span><\/p>\n There are numerous API Management product offerings in the market, each having its own set of business-relevant features, technology characteristics, and commercial models. Many organizations, and maybe yours? May struggle with either insufficient competency to evaluate such critical technology assets or the time pressure to be able to dedicate to a proper systematic evaluation exercise or simply both. Selecting the right API Management tool has become an art of knowing. We know.<\/p>\nDiving into Hybrid API Management architectures<\/b><\/h2>\n
Hybrid in your IT landscape<\/b><\/h2>\n
\nHow to select the right API Management Platform for your organization?<\/h3>\n