Azure API Apps

Azure API Apps provide a platform that enables creating, hosting and using API‘s for cloud and on premises infrastructure. It enables in creating and app that can provide API based application / software accessibility, connectivity for SaaS / hybrid cloud environments and a central API management platform.

 How Azure API are used?

Azure API are primarily designed for software developers and vendors / publishers to provide them with means to create, deliver, use and manage RESTFul Web API’s for their software / apps. It can be used to provide;

• SaaS connectivity – provide SaaS publishers the ability to publish and consume their own set of API calls
• Integration with other Azure App services such as Azure Logic Apps, Web Apps and Mobile Apps
• Automate and manage the process of creating, versioning, deploying and managing API’s
• Create API’s in any language (.NET, Java, Python etc)
• Automating generation of software development kits (SDK) in different languages ( C#, Java, Java Script etc)

Azure offers developers the ability to build and host their APIs in the cloud. As Mobile phones take over PC sales, it has become more important for developers to build and deploy REST API services which both Mobile Phones and Tablets can connect to. Azure App Services provides the Paas environment to accomplish this.

WHY USE API APPS

If you need a scalable, secure platform to build your API’s then Azure API will meet your requirements. You can develop your API’s using multiple languages such as Python, C# or even PHP. You can select from a selection of web frameworks such as Node JS, ASP.net Web API and more. If you develop using Visual Studio you get integration through project templates and deployment wizards. Azure API can also be used for integration scenarios to leverage workflows using Azure Logic Apps.

Automate API discovery by using Swashbuckle

Swagger is a popular, open source framework backed by a large ecosystem of tools that helps you design, build, document, and consume your RESTful APIs.

Generating Swagger metadata manually can be a very tedious process. If you build your API using ASP.NET or ASP.NET Core, you can use the Swashbuckle NuGet package to automatically do this for you, saving a lot of time creating the metadata and maintaining it. Additionally, Swashbuckle also contains an embedded version of swagger-ui, which it will automatically serve up once Swashbuckle is installed.