webMethods API Gateway tutorial
Users can enable business-to-business communication between trading partners using Application Programming Interfaces (APIs). In addition to exchanging XML, EDI, flat files documents and so on, partners can invoke the exposed APIs to exchange information. These APIs are available by associating Trading Networks with a webMethods API Gateway instance. A partner can access the APIs that appear in the Partner Profiles and the associated Partner Groups pages. The API access key and the authentication mechanism to access the APIs also appear on the APIs tab of the Partner Profiles page. An Administrator can provide a user to view and edit permissions to add or delete the appearance of an API in the Partner Profiles page.
Supported Version: 10.3 onwards
About the Author
Shivaraj Hegde
Email:shivaraj.hegde@softwareag.com
SIQA
Products required:
- Integration Server
- Trading Networks
- API Gateway
- My WebMethods Server
- Trading Networks User Interfaces
Configurations:
Start and configure Trading Networks Server:
To start work with Trading Networks both My WebMethods Server and Integration Server should be started first.
- Once the servers are up and running, validate that the database pools are successfully mapped for TN functional Alias under IS Admin > Settings > JDBC Pools
- Validate that Integration Server Central User Management is configured under IS Admin > Security > User Management. If not configured, restart Integration Server and then validate.
- Start API Gateway server and have all the required APIs and configure those on API Gateway to use those APIs as part of Partners in Trading Networks.
- For more details about how to create APIs on Gateway please follow Help links on API Gateway.
- Add API Gateway as remote server on Trading Network Integration Server and save to create communication between API Gateway and Trading Networks.
- Configure below mentioned TN property on My WebMethods Server “Trading Networks Configuration Properties” page to use the APIs on TN Partners page.
tn.api.gateway.server.alias=<remoteServerAlias>
Note: Parameter “remoteServerAlias” is the name of Remote Server added in the above mentioned step. In the Example screenshot it is “APIGateway”.
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- To add the APIs as part of the available partner, click on Partner name and switch to APIs tab.
- Click Add APIs button to select the required APIs for the Partner.
- The APIs details can also be seen once APIs are added as part of Partner.
- Once APIs are added as part of Partner, respective application will be created on API Gateway with name “<partnerName> Application” and appropriate Partner ID.
This can be seen from the Applications menu in API Gateway.
- The details from the Application created on API Gateway will be displayed in Partner details page.
- Using the API Access key available on partner details page, the APIs added as part of the partner can be invoked using the client applications.
- The API Invocation details can also be seen on API Usage page of Trading Networks on My WebMethods Server. To get the API invocation details for the APIs, respective policy for the APIs should be applied on API Gateway for the APIs.
Policy to be applied for the APIs: Traffic Monitoring -> Log Invocation
- API Usage page will display the invocation details based on the filters applied. The Filters can be applied to respective partner or both partner and API Name. Filters can also be based on the duration of API invocations and date ranges.
- The API Usage page will display below information for the APIs part of Partner.
- Invocation Time: Time at which the invocation of API is done
- API Name: Invoked API
- API Version: Version of invoked API
- Partner Name: Partner under which API exists
- Operation Name: Resource or operation of the API
- Method: API Method invoked
- Response Code: Response code generated when API is invoked
- Status: Invocation status of API
- Total Time: Total time taken to invoke the API
- Total Data Size: Data size processed during API invocation
- Permissions for the API Usage page can be handled from the Permission Management page of MWS for different users and groups.
