This chapter will start with the assumption that you already have an API Connect installation complete, along with the required components configured within the Cloud Manager. You should have all of your gateways services, SMTP server, and portal services already configured. Your hostnames being used for all of your services and components should be added to your DNS server and network communication between all components should be open.

The big picture

As you are introduced to all of the terminology and structure of how things are organized within API Connect, it could start to get a little overwhelming. So before diving into each piece of the setup that you will need to perform, let’s take a look at the big picture and how things are organized. Hopefully, this will give you a high-level perspective on where each piece of the puzzle fits and provide some clarity on how you can structure your environment.

In Figure 3.1, you can see a very high-level overview of the main components and their hierarchy. You can see here that most of these components are required and you can have more than one defined. The one exception here is spaces. Spaces are not required but we will get into more detail on this in the Utilizing spaces section later in this chapter. Also, note that for simplicity, plans are not shown here as they will be covered in subsequent chapters:

Figure 3.1 – High-level organization within APIC

As we go through each of the components shown in Figure 3.1, you can refer to it to see where and how each of these fits into the overall scheme. Although your implementation and organization will likely be more complex, this will give you the most simplistic view for your understanding.

For a more realistic illustration, Figure 3.2 shows what a typical organization structure might look like. Your setup will likely expand upon this, but this will give you an idea of the basic structure:

Figure 3.2 – Common configuration

The remainder of this chapter will take the time to explain the role of each of these components and how to configure them. Again, careful planning and understanding of these concepts will ensure that your digital transformation is following a framework for success!

Your first step when configuring your environment is to define your Provider Organization. As you can see in Figure 3.1, this is the highest level in the hierarchy. This is typically defined for your organization and it is common to only have one. It is, however, possible that you would like to define multiple Provider Organizations to represent different subsidiaries of your parent company.

Provider Organizations

A Provider Organization is just as it sounds. It is the organization that provides the APIs. This should not be confused with a consumer organization, which you might have guessed is the organization that consumes the APIs. Defining your Provider Organization is done within the Cloud Manager UI and must be defined before you or anyone else can access the API Management Console to develop and publish your APIs. It is here that you define a few important pieces of information, as follows:

• Organization title/name
• The user registry that will be used to authenticate the owner’s user access
• The owner of the organization