Boost efficiency with Power Platform and Azure API Management

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With the rise of cloud computing, mobile devices, and the Internet of Things (IoT), APIs have become more important than ever, and their use has increased tremendously in recent years. APIs, or Application Programming Interfaces, are the mechanisms that enable different software systems to communicate and interact with each other seamlessly. They allow developers to build flexible, integrated solutions that leverage data and functionality from multiple sources. This, in turn, enables businesses to deliver more personalized, efficient, and innovative services to employees, partners, and customers.

 

 

 

With the ability for software systems to communicate with each other comes the need for an efficient platform that can handle the integration of different applications and services. That’s why we’re uniting Microsoft Power Platform—a suite of tools that allows businesses to build custom applications, automate workflows, conversational bots, and analyze data—with Azure API Management, a tool that provides a way for organizations to expose their APIs with customized governance and security standards . By combining Microsoft Power Platform with API Management, you can enable new business scenarios by expanding the consumption of your organizational APIs.

 

 

 

Organizing APIs within Azure API Management and consuming them from Power Platform allows your business to streamline workflows, enhance productivity, and expand audience reach. In this guide, we will explore the benefits of integrating Microsoft Power Platform with API Management, the interface between the two platforms, and essential considerations such as security, governance, and scalability.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Benefits of integrating Power Platform with Azure API Management

 

Before diving into the benefits of integrating Power Platform with Azure API Management, it's essential to understand what each platform does. The Microsoft Power Platform is a low-code platform that allows businesses to create custom applications, automate workflows, conversational bots, and analyze data without requiring extensive programming knowledge. The suite comprises four components: Power Apps, Power Automate, Power Virtual Agents and Power BI. Power Apps allow businesses to create custom applications with pre-built templates and drag-and-drop interfaces Power Automate automates workflows by connecting different services and applications, while Power BI provides analytics and data visualization tools.

 

 

 

API Management, on the other hand, is a platform that allows businesses to manage and expose APIs to internal and partner developers. It provides a way to abstract, secure, and observe the APIs. Azure API Management is essential for businesses that want to expose their services to developers and/or (internal) partners. API Management is a platform designed for developers, IT administrators, and API managers. Azure API Management comprises several components, including API Gateway, Developer Portal, and Management Interfaces.

 

Integrating Power Platform with Azure API Management can help businesses achieve their digital transformation goals by providing a scalable, secure, and efficient solution for creating custom business applications. The benefits of integration are numerous, including process automation and a reduction in manual efforts. This can lead to faster response times and increased efficiency, ultimately resulting in cost savings.

 

 

 

Another benefit of integration is that it can expand the audience who can consume your APIs. The low-code nature of the Power Platform means that APIs can be utilized by a larger audience while being securely managed. When using the Microsoft Power Platform, citizen developers may require access to business capabilities created by professional developers and implemented in Azure. This can lead to new business scenarios that were not possible before and can make it easier for citizen developers to discover and use APIs and build applications with it. Azure API Management allows professional developers to make their backend service available as APIs and then export them to the Power Platform (Power Apps and Power Automate) as custom connectors in a secure and govern way. (For more on this, check out the article “Export APIs from Azure API Management to the Power Platform.”)

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tokyo Metro turns to Azure for third-party development

 

Tokyo Metro, a transportation company in Japan, uses Microsoft Azure to provide a better travel experience for their passengers, and offers a perfect example of API Management in action. The company has implemented a variety of solutions, including an app that offers real-time train information and an API management platform that allows third-party developers to create applications that use Tokyo Metro's data.

 

 

 

Azure API management allows Tokyo Metro to control and monitor the use of their data by external developers, and the company can set limits on how much data each developer can access, as well as monitor and analyze usage patterns. This helps ensure that Tokyo Metro's data is used in a responsible and efficient manner, while also encouraging innovation and new applications.

 

 

 

“Using Power Apps, which enables the low-code creation of applications, we created an application that calls a detection model created from Power Apps with Custom Vision and an app that determines whether rail fasteners are normal or abnormal based on a classification model,” said Kosuke Miyasaka, Tokyo Metro’s Azure Application Innovation Specialist, who worked closely with Microsoft. “Since Tokyo Metro had a strong desire to develop a usable app on their own, so we proceeded with workshops that included concrete lectures on how to create apps.”

 

 

 

Security, governance, and scalability considerations

 

When integrating Microsoft Power Platform with API Management, several security, governance, and scalability considerations need to be considered. Microsoft continues their investment in security and end-to-end protection for users with API Management providing several security features, such as OAuth 2.0 authentication, IP filtering, request validation, and rate limiting. Developing your own environment strategy for managing apps, connections, and assets while assigning permissions to users is crucial to ensure productive development and to secure and organize your resources. (For more on security, check out this article titled “Secure Connectors with APIM.”)

 

 

 

Another crucial consideration for integration is governance. To ensure that APIs are developed consistently and follow best practices, policies must be configured to change the behavior of one or a set of APIs. Policies are executed sequentially in either the request to or response from an API, and can be used to, among other things, get authorization context, limit call rates, control flow, or emit metrics. Policies can then be applied at the API level, the API operation level, or the global level.

 

 

 

In , scalability must be examined when integrating Power Platform with Azure API Management. It’s important to ensure that the API Gateway can handle increased traffic as API usage grows. API Management provides several scalability features, such as automatic scaling and caching.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Analytics and data integration

 

Critical to developers and admins is analytic data such as user behavior, traffic patterns, and usage metrics that provide insights into how users are interacting with their applications and services. By analyzing data, developers can gain a better understanding of how their applications are being used and identify areas for improvement and optimization.

 

 

 

Azure API Management provides built-in analytics capabilities that give developers access to a wide range of analytics capabilities to monitor and optimize API usage and make data-driven decisions to improve their APIs and services. Real-time collection of detailed usage metrics for each API—including number of calls, latency, and response times—can identify performance issues.

 

 

 

Data is also collected on the location of API calls, allowing developers to track which regions are generating the most traffic. This data can be used to optimize API performance for specific regions or to identify regions where additional infrastructure may be required.

 

The importance of API analytic data makes the pairing of Microsoft Power Platform and Azure API Management a powerful set of tools for any developer. By leveraging these tools, developers can gain insights into how their APIs are being used and make data-driven decisions to optimize their APIs and improve their services.

 

 

 

API gateway integration

 

An API gateway is a layer of software that acts as an intermediary between backend services and API consumers. It handles all requests from API consumers, routing them to the appropriate backend service based on the API endpoint, method, and other relevant factors. API gateways—also known as “data planes” or “runtimes”—can help enforce security policies and provide visibility into API usage and performance through logging and monitoring.

 

 

 

Developers may encounter several problems when building and managing APIs that can be solved by using an API gateway. For example, as API usage grows, developers may need to manage and distribute traffic more effectively to ensure reliable API performance. An API gateway can help by providing load balancing and traffic management features, such as caching, rate limiting, and throttling.

 

Developers must also ensure that their APIs are secure and protected against unauthorized access or attacks. An API gateway can provide security features, such as authentication, encryption, and authorization policies, to ensure that only authorized users can access the API. In addition, an API gateway can help by providing auto-scaling capabilities and distributed caching to improve API performance and reliability, as well as monitoring and analytics capabilities, such as traffic analysis, performance metrics, and logging, to help developers diagnose issues and optimize API performance.

 

 

 

 

 

 

An Azure API Management gateway is a robust solution to these problems, allowing developers to define custom behavior for API requests and responses. The gateway is a service component that is responsible for proxying API requests, applying policies, collecting telemetry, and ensuring that the APIs are performing as expected. It acts as a facade to backend services by accepting API calls and routing them to appropriate backends. It also verifies API keys and other credentials, enforces usage quotas and rate limits, optionally transforms requests and responses, caches responses, and emits logs, metrics, and traces.

 

 

 

Azure API Management provides two types of gateways: managed and self-hosted. Managed gateways are fully managed by Azure and are designed for customers who require high availability and scalability. These gateways are hosted in Azure data centers and are automatically scaled up or down based on usage patterns. Managed gateways also provide advanced features such as caching, rate limiting, and security.

 

Self-hosted gateways, on the other hand, are hosted by the customer on their own infrastructure. These gateways are ideal for customers who require more control over their API traffic or who need to deploy APIs in on-premises or private cloud environments. Self-hosted gateways can be installed on any compatible hardware or virtual machine and can be configured to provide the same advanced features as managed gateways.

 

 

 

By combining the Power Platform with Azure API Management, an API gateway can assure organizations that their APIs are performing optimally. An API gateway can help simplify the integration of Microsoft Power Platform and Azure API Management by providing centralized management, transformation of API data, caching, and analytics and monitoring of API usage.

 

(For more on API gateways, check out the article “API gateway in Azure API Management.”)

 

 

 

The future of Power Platform and Azure API Management

 

Integrating Microsoft Power Platform with API Management can provide numerous benefits to businesses, including streamlined workflows, enhanced productivity, and expanded audience reach. As businesses continue to digitize their operations, the need for an efficient platform that can handle the integration of different applications and services will only increase. The low-code nature of the Microsoft Power Platform and the scalability and security features of API Management make them a perfect fit for businesses looking to streamline their operations and reach new audiences.

 

 

 

By combining Microsoft Power Platform with API Management, you can enable new business scenarios by expanding the audience for who can use your APIs. Whether you're a developer, IT administrator, or API manager, the integration of Microsoft Power Platform with API Management is an excellent way to optimize your business operations and provide a better user experience for your customers.

 

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