Pushing REST APIs to IBM API Connect

Create or update a definition for one or more deployed REST APIs to IBM® API Connect.

Before you begin

You must complete the following tasks:
  • Register your organization and the email address for the API owner with IBM API Connect; see Administering Developer organizations in the IBM API Connect product documentation.
  • Ensure that the IBM API Connect server has a sandbox environment to which you can push the REST API.
  • Ensure that any firewalls allow the following connections:
    • IBM Integration Bus can connect to the IBM API Connect server by using HTTPS.
    • The IBM API Connect server can connect to the integration server by using HTTP or HTTPS.
  • Create a REST API in the IBM Integration Toolkit; see Creating a REST API.
  • Deploy the REST API to the integration server; see Packaging and deploying a REST API.

About this task

You can use IBM API Connect to manage and publish APIs. It enables you to promote and monitor the usage of the REST APIs, and to secure and authenticate access requests from external users and applications to your IBM Integration Bus application. It also provides monitoring and fine-grained control over access and workload management, such as the ability to control the number of requests per second for a given client application.

For information about supported versions of IBM API Connect, see the IBM Integration Bus system requirements web page.

IBM API Connect works in conjunction with an IBM DataPower® Gateway appliance; IBM API Connect pushes configuration to the IBM DataPower Gateway, which in turn proxies the requests back to the IBM Integration Bus integration server that hosts the deployed REST API, as shown in the following diagram:

Figure 1. The interaction between IBM Integration Bus, IBM API Connect, IBM DataPower Gateway, and HTTP client applications.
This diagram shows the interaction between IBM Integration Bus, IBM API Connect, IBM DataPower Gateway, and HTTP client applications.

When you push a REST API to IBM API Connect, you either create a new REST API definition or, if the REST API definition already exists on the IBM API Connect system, you replace the latest version of the REST API definition with the new definition of your REST API. The title of the REST API is used to identify the REST API definition on the IBM API Connect system.

You can push one or more deployed REST APIs to IBM API Connect by using either the IBM Integration Bus web user interface or the mqsipushapis command, as described in the following topics:

Alternatively, can push a single REST API to IBM API Connect by using the IBM Integration Toolkit, as described in Pushing a REST API to IBM API Management or IBM API Connect by using the IBM Integration Toolkit.