Microsoft Azure API Management Reviews

We have two approaches to how we use the solution. We own the managed services and the other we have customers take the subscription and we manage it. 

From my understanding, there are some constraints around governance and service-to-service intercommunication managing priorities and our own governance. Examples include, how you manage all your clusters, the entire service communication, and having more tolerant experts.

I have been using the solution for approximately one year.

The technical support has not been the greatest. Microsoft has been outsourcing its support services and we have quite a few challenges in terms of technical support. We rarely asked them for anything and try to find the solution ourselves. This has been our most recent experience. However, there are certain advantages as well. Now you have a large internet resource pool to support Azure. This balances the support out, but otherwise, if you are looking for very specific support, there will be some challenges for your teams.

The initial setup is not that complex, but there are certain challenges.

We are limited to what choice of solution we can purchase. There are multiple aspects here. If it is a choice that we have to make, then we do it based on the requirement or recommendations, such as GCP, AWS, or Azure platform. However, given the present circumstances, the customer base that I am supporting at the moment is all Microsoft shop customers. Their inclination is always towards Microsoft-based solutions. That is where it has left us with no choice, but to go with Azure. While we still recommend this solution in some cases, for instance, analytics and where we need the big data solutions. We have been pushing for a GCP and in some cases to have AWS as well. For now Azure is the platform and this has been the journey that has left us with no choice but to go with it. Based on the resources that we are leveraging, the price we are paying to use this solution is slightly higher than other competitors. In a few cases, it has its own advantage in some resources. 

I have evaluated GCP and AWS.

I would advise those wanting to implement this solution that they can use this solution if it fits their deployment criteria. However, there are better options available.

I rate Microsoft Azure API Management a seven out of ten.

• API gateway features
• AD integration
• Access management capabilities
• Usage plans
• Quotas for APIs, etc.

It is a simple and effective way to enable micro-services architecture. The Standard Tier is cost effective.

• An IaaS option is needed. The SaaS option limited our requirement, as we wanted more control on our data, and integration with our virtual LAN. Integration with our VLAN was possible only with the premium version and expensive gateway controllers.
• PCI compliance

I evaluated it for one month.

I have not encountered any stability issues.

I have not encountered any scalability issues.

Technical support is 7/10.

I did not previously use a different solution. However, I evaluated other API gateways and shortlisted ForgeRock - OpenAM/OpenIG, because it has an IaaS option.

Initial setup was fairly straightforward; excellent documentation.

The Standard Tier is cost effective.

Before choosing this product, I evaluated NGINX, Apigee, and ForgeRock (OpenAM/OpenIG).

Code impact: Required services to import Swagger library.

Being SaaS, if you are running services on IaaS, communication between APIM and your services will be through the public internet (if that’s a cause of concern).

APIM was available in classic mode only (as of April 2016). Our infrastructure was ARM. Connectivity was complex and expensive.

The ability to manage user access to given API operations.

• Visibility on user usage analytics
• Set policies across API operations, which control the type of access (CORS, JSONP)
• The ability to piece together an array of services into one proxied service. Where I can create consistency to both usage and documentation

We were securely able to offer services to external third parties to securely consume within a relatively short amount of time.

• Versioning of API operations (which I have heard is in the pipeline)

• Easy exporting of configurations from the Administrator portal.

I've used it for around six months or so.

I did follow the prescribed steps to export our Test subscription setup to import into a production subscription environment, but I was unable to achieve the export within the short amount of time I had to achieve it. So to get around the issue, I just manually configured it in the production environment as part of the release.

No issues encountered.

No issues encountered.

Didn't use them.

10/10, as our Microsoft account manager arranged direct contact with members of the API Management Team.

No previous solution used.

Pretty easy. The online documentation is very thorough.

In-house implementation.

The product probably saved us at least two to four sprints worth of extra work, which would not have achieved the quality, which this PAS provides us, out of the box.

Nothing. Day to Day costs are very minimal, tens of dollars a month or so depending on peaks of usage.

No. I was evaluating Azure PAS offerings and producing proof of concept solutions just before the project kicked off.

Definitely check it out. The documentation is plentiful and it is pretty easy to setup and have something going within an hour or so.

We use Microsoft Azure API Management with a custom software solution.

I like the stability and the ease of use.

The licensing fees should be cheaper.

I have been using Microsoft Azure API Management for three years.

Microsoft Azure API Management is a stable product.

It is a scalable solution. We have 60 users in our organization who use this solution.

Technical support is good.

I knew MuleSoft Anypoint. I worked with it for two years.

It was better for the enterprise architecture to use Microsoft Azure API Management.

Microsoft Azure API Management is easy to install.

We have a team of four engineers and managers to maintain this solution.

The licensing fees are expensive. I would like it to be cheaper.

Our licensing fees are paid on a monthly basis.

I would recommend this solution to others who are interested in using it.

I would rate Microsoft Azure API Management an eight out of ten.

The Azure Active Directory Synchronization is quite good.

They should improve the inbuilt policies that they have and that should properly create a deployment architecture as well.

We have been using Azure for about a year. 

It is stable.

It is scalable. 

The price could be lower.

At the end of the day, all the products are one and the same, just that some of them have more features than others. That's all.

I would rate Azure a seven out of ten. Not a ten because I would like for them to improve on the number of policies it has inbuilt and for it to have better deployment architecture.

My primary use case is as part of a multi-channel strategy wherein APIMs are being used with micro-products or third-party clients. Our web application firewall receives all the external and public traffic, and it re-routes to the APIM, which is on the private subnet. The APIM manages both in authentication and authorization service composition layer.

One thing that could be improved is to remove the dependency of Kubernetes as an external L4 load layer balance. It would also be useful if APIM could integrate internally with Kubernetes right out of the box.

I have been using this solution for around two years.

General support has been very good, but sometimes when immediate support is required, it isn't available.

The initial setup was quite easy as it is a managed service.

I used a managed service to implement.

I would rate this product as seven out of ten.

This solution is very flexible, and it's very compatible with the other Azure products.

The developer portal can be improved. There should be more resources available for the developers.

Better integration with third-party products would helpful.

I have been using Microsoft Azure API Management for two years.

This is a stable product and we intend to continue using it in the future.

We have more than ten users and there are five developers.

The support for Azure is excellent and we are satisfied with it.

The initial setup is very simple. It doesn't take longer than one or two hours to deploy.

A consultant assisted us with the deployment.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.

Our primary use case is to provide API mapping for our clients. We're a customer of Azure and I'm a system analyst. 

The most valuable feature of the solution is it's simplicity. It's easy to set up and is very well integrated with the Azure environment.

In terms of improvement, it would be helpful if they could develop an on-premises option. 

I've been using this solution for one year. 

I would rate this product a seven out of 10.