Runtimes overview

Runtimes are individual instances that run as part of a typical API Management deployment setup.

The API management setup can include multiple products such as API Connect subsystems (DataPower API Gateway, DataPower Nano Gateway, CMS Portal, webMethods API Gateway, Developer Portal) as well as third-party gateways like AWS API Gateway, Azure API Management Service, Apigee API Management, and Kong Gateway. Each product can be deployed as a single node or in a clustered configuration for high availability. Regardless of the number of nodes, each fully deployed product instance is considered one runtime. Additionally, API Connect uses provider organizations and catalogs to support separation of environments and fine-grained access control. However, when runtimes connect to Federated API Management, these distinctions are not retained. Each subsystem in API connect is represented as a single runtime in Federated API Management, and all APIs published to that subsystem regardless of the provider organization or catalog are fully visible within Federated API Management.

These runtimes can be distributed across diverse deployment models including multi-region, multi-cloud, and hybrid environments while still being monitored and managed collectively through Federated API Management.

Runtimes

Assume that Company A uses the AWS and Azure versions of the IBM Cloud platform. The company has runtimes that are scattered in three different regions in the United States, Europe, and Australia as shown in the figure. Each region has three staging runtime environments - development, pre-production, and production. The existing runtimes in varying landscape are added to the federated API management. After these runtimes are added, federated API management captures the details of all the nine runtimes in the landscape. federated API management offers the ability to manage and monitor all the nine runtimes and the specifics of the associated assets in a single UI without logging in to individual runtimes.

The runtimes get auto populated in federated API management when the connectivity is established between runtimes and federated API management.

In the Catalog page, click the Runtimes tab to view the lists of runtimes in federated API management. You can customize the rows and columns of the runtime list, search, filter, view, edit, and delete the runtime. You can also use REST endpoints to create, retrieve, update, and delete a runtime.