Replacing a Product with another Product

You can replace a published Product with another Product by using the API Manager.

Before you begin

The replacement Product must be in the Staged, Deprecated, or Published state. The Product to be replaced must be in the Published state.

To complete the Product management tasks that are described in this topic, you must either be the owner of the API provider organization, or be assigned Manage permission for Products in the Catalog that contains the Product. If you have View permission for Products, you have read-only access to the Product management page. For information on configuring Product management permissions for a Catalog, see Creating and configuring Catalogs.

The syndication feature in IBM® API Connect means that Products can be contained within a Space in a Catalog. In this case, to complete the Product management tasks that are described in this topic, you must either be the owner of the API provider organization, or be assigned Manage permission for Products in the Space that contains the Product. For information on configuring Product management permissions for a Space, see Managing user access in a Space.

[V5.0.5 or later]Restriction: If the Products are contained within a Space in the Catalog, and the replacement action is being made at the Space level, the replacement Product must be located in the same Space as the Product to be replaced. If the replacement action is being made at the Catalog level, Products can be replaced across Spaces. For more information about the Space feature, see Using syndication in IBM API Connect.

About this task

When you replace a Product with another Product, the following actions are taken:
  • The replacement Product is published.
  • The same visibility, subscriber, and gateway enforcement settings from the original Product are used in the replacement Product.
  • The subscribers to the original Product are migrated to the replacement Product.
  • [V5.0.8 or later]For paid Plans, a message indicating that there is a change is displayed. The billing schedule and charges begin immediately with the new Plan. Free trial days do not apply to migrated Plans.
    Note: Customers cannot be migrated automatically from a free Plan to a paid Plan. To move your customers from a free Plan to a paid Plan, you can supersede the product with a new product and set a migration target to the paid Plan. The customer then selects a button to migrate, and must enter their credit card information before the process is complete.
  • The original Product is moved to the Retired state. Products in the Retired state are removed from the Developer Portal; they are no longer visible to the application developers, and any subscriptions to them are canceled. However, the Product can be staged again later if required.

Although you can publish to a development Catalog, the development Catalog should be used only for testing purposes. Similarly, a Developer Portal created from a development Catalog must be used for testing purposes only, and not for production use. For more information on Catalogs, see Working with Catalogs.

[V5.0.4 only] When you use the test tool in a development Catalog, any Product that you test is forced through and overwrites staged and published Products even if the APIs are being used in the Developer Portal.

Note:
  • When you publish, replace, or supersede a Product, there is a short delay before the APIs in the Product are available to be called through the API Connect gateway.
  • All references in this topic to a Catalog, can also be applied to a Space in a Catalog, unless specified otherwise.

Procedure

To replace a Product, complete the following steps:

  1. On the Dashboard of the API Manager UI, select the Catalog that you want to work with.
    The Products tab of the Catalog opens, and all of the Products available in that Catalog are displayed. You can select which states are shown by clicking the filter icon in the Search banner and selecting one or more of the State check boxes.
  2. [V5.0.5 or later] If the Product that you want to work with is contained within a Space, select the required Space by clicking the down arrow next to the Catalog name in the submenu navigation banner.
    The Products tab of the Space opens, and all of the Products available in that Space are displayed. You can select which states are shown by using the filter check boxes in the State bar.
  3. Alongside the replacement Product version, click the Manage icon Product manage icon, then click Replace an existing Product.
    The Replace an existing product window opens.
  4. Click the Product that you want to replace, and click Next.
  5. From the drop-down list, select which Plans from your new Product correspond to Plans in your old Product.
    API Manager automatically completes this page when there is a clear correspondence. For example, when there are Plans in both the new and old Products that are called Gold.
  6. Click Replace.
    If approval is required to replace Products in this Catalog, an approval request is sent, and the Product moves to the Pending state; the Product is replaced when the request is approved. If approval is not required, the Product is replaced immediately. For information on configuring Product lifecycle approvals for a Catalog, see Creating and configuring Catalogs. For information on approving requests, see Approving Product lifecycle and subscription requests.
    Note:
    • Approval for Product lifecycle state changes in a Catalog is disabled by default. You must explicitly enable the Product lifecycle state changes that you want to enforce.
    • [V5.0.5 or later]Product lifecycle approvals can be configured only at the Catalog level. This feature is not available at the Space level.

Results

Your new Product is in the Published state, and the original Product is in the Retired state.

Your new Product is published to your preferred organizations or communities. Application developers within the groups you selected can see and use the APIs within the Product.

Any application developer requests to use your Product are displayed on the Approvals tab in the containing Catalog, where you can decline or accept the request.