API Publishing

With Frends you can design, publish and manage API's using the API Management functionality of Frends. Additionally you can seamlessly add API endpoints for your integration processes to orchestrate and define the back-end API logic.

In Frends API Management you always start by creating an API definition using the OpenAPI Specification. Your API definition then acts as the basis for all other API functionality.

With a ready API Definition you can add the back-end logic to the API's by using the same Low-Code approach as in other integrations.

You will usually implement the back-end logic for two main scenarios:

Data API's

Where you will retrieve data from a back-end system or data sources and return that data through the API.

Functionality API's

Where you recieve a request through an API that starts an integration process such as inserting a new order to an ERP and all the necessary automation steps included. In these cases the API acts more as a starting point for the underlining business process automation.

Publishing API's

With the Distributed Architecture of Frends each remote integration runtime (or Frends Agent) has the capability of publishing and securing APIs. This means that for external Open API's you should choose to deploy and expose the API from an Agent that's installed on a public resource such as Azure or AWS. On the other hand you can also choose to deploy internal API's that are only acccesible within the same network, by simply choosing to deploy the API to an Agent hosted in a private cloud or ground enviornment.

Of course you can mix internal and external APIs as needed.

Securing API's

Frends API's can be secured in two ways:

Using OpenID Connect and oAuth 2.0

With OpenID Connect and oAuth 2.0 you will need to connect your existing identity management system to frends, as frends does not offer an identity server by itself. This is done so also to prevent users and user management from splitting between multiple tools within the IT of the customer.

OpenID Connect and oAuth are most suitable to secure APIs which server front end applications or systems directly. This means that the API consumer usually authenticates as the end-user directly rather than using "system" credentials.

For example:

oAuth secured APIs rely on Policies where you can define which users/groups have access to which API.

Using API Keys

You can also secure APIs with API Keys that are managed and stored within the frends platform directly.

API Keys are most suitable for APIs where the consumer of the API is another system or application and there is no requirement to identifty or authenticate the actual end-user.

API Keys are managed using API Rule -sets which define what API Keys have access to which API.

API Lifecycle Management

Frends has a full API Lifecycle Management suite to manage the APIs and various aspects of APIs over their lifecycle. Read more about the API Management Features here: Frends API Management.

API Developer Portal

As the API functionality in Frends is built on-top of the Open API Specification each deployed API also exposes a developer friendly API Portal using based on the industry standard Swagger UI. This is meant to act as the API documentation for developers wishing to connect to the APIs.