It is important that you perform some basic verification of the LTE installation that you just completed:
- Check the status of all the services to make sure that all the containers are running by executing the following command:
apic-lte-win_10.0.1.5.exe status
This will give the following output:
Figure 4.4 – LTE environment status results
2. You can also consult the log file for each of these LTE containers by using the following command. Consulting the container log files might be required if you face any problems/errors while publishing and testing your APIs later:
docker logs -f -n 10 container-name
Replace container-name with the name of the container whose logs you want to monitor. Container names can be retrieved from the command (apic-lte-win_10.0.1.5.exe status) described in the previous step. They are provided in the Container column of Figure 4.4.
This concludes the verification of your LTE.
Now that you have installed the Designer and the LTE environments on your workstation, it is time for you to connect these two tools together. As you will recall, Designer helps you in the development of your APIs and the LTE provides an execution runtime for your APIs. You will see these tools in action.
Connecting Designer to the LTE
Designer allows you to connect to multiple environments. You can connect Designer to the LTE or to the API Manager cloud environment. In all cases, you should maintain the version compatibility between Designer and the execution environment (the LTE or API Manager) being connected to. You will now connect Designer to the LTE:
- Open Designer. Click on Open a Directory (Figure 4.5). You will provide the path to a local directory where your APIs and Products definitions can be stored. This is typically your development workspace.
Figure 4.5 – Local workspace directory path
2. On the New API Connect connection screen (Figure 4.6), provide information about connecting to your LTE. This information was gathered earlier, during the setup of the LTE environment. You can always retrieve that information by executing the apic-lte-win_10.0.1.5.exe status command. Click Submit.
Figure 4.6 – LTE environment host URL
3. On the login screen, provide the username (shavon) and password (7iron-hide) information. Click Log in. Your Designer should now be connected to the LTE!
4. Before going further, it is important for you to quickly familiarize yourself with some key navigation areas of the Designer window. Key areas of Designer are marked with numbers in Figure 4.7 :
Figure 4.7 – API Designer interface
The details of the key areas of the Designer are provided in the following table:
Table 4.1 – Designer Interface’s key navigation areas
It is time to take a quick recap of the things you have accomplished thus far. By now, you have set up on your workstation the Designer component (for API development) and the LTE (for API execution). You have also connected Designer to your local LTE. Then you took a quick overview of Designer’s main screen and understood the main navigation areas.
The Designer and LTE components provide a great way to perform localized API development. These two tools offer a perfect starting point for many developers. They should be sufficient for you to start API development. Yet, many developers choose to use a more comprehensive web-based API Manager tool for their API development needs. API Manager comes with multiple functionality enhancements, such as working with OAuth providers, user-authentication registries, and a unit test harness.
With Designer and the LTE now in place, it is time for you to start putting these tools to use. The following sections will expose you to the fundamentals of API development using the tools you have set up.