Microsoft Unveils Exciting New API Management Service Tiers in Azure

By Steef-Jan Wiggers

Published on [Date]

Microsoft has made significant strides in its Azure API Management service by introducing two new tiers: Basic v2 and Standard v2. These new tiers provide developers with enhanced functionality and improved performance to manage APIs more efficiently.

The Advantages of Azure API Management

Azure API Management is a comprehensive solution that enables organizations to build, secure, and manage APIs at scale. It offers a wide range of features and benefits, including:

• API Gateway: Azure API Management provides an API gateway that acts as a single entry point for all API requests. This helps streamline communication and improve overall performance.
• Security: The service includes robust security features such as authentication, authorization, and encryption to protect APIs from unauthorized access and malicious attacks.
• Developer Portal: Azure API Management offers a customizable developer portal that allows developers to discover, explore, and consume APIs easily. This enhances collaboration between API providers and consumers.
• Analytics: The service provides detailed analytics and monitoring capabilities to track API usage, identify trends, and make data-driven decisions.
• Policies: Azure API Management allows developers to apply various policies to APIs, such as rate limiting, caching, and transformation. This gives them granular control over the behavior and performance of their APIs.

Introducing Basic v2 and Standard v2 Tiers

Microsoft's latest announcement introduces Basic v2 and Standard v2 tiers to Azure API Management. These tiers offer additional capabilities and performance improvements, empowering developers to meet their API management needs more effectively.

Basic v2 Tier

The Basic v2 tier builds upon the existing Basic tier and includes new features to enhance API management capabilities:

• Multi-region support: Basic v2 enables organizations to deploy their API Management service in multiple Azure regions, ensuring high availability and improved performance.
• Increased scale limits: This tier increases various limits, such as the number of APIs, operations per second, and back-end server instances, allowing developers to handle higher workloads.
• Enhanced security: Basic v2 introduces additional security features, including virtual network connectivity and integration with Azure Private Link. These features provide more secure and isolated environments for API management.
• Developer portal customization: Basic v2 allows developers to customize the look and feel of their developer portal, providing a more tailored and branded experience for API consumers.

Standard v2 Tier

The Standard v2 tier is designed for organizations with more extensive API management requirements. It includes all the features of the Basic v2 tier, along with the following enhancements:

• Better performance: Standard v2 offers improved latency and throughput, allowing developers to handle high traffic and deliver reliable API experiences.
• Advanced analytics: This tier provides additional analytics capabilities, such as custom dashboards, anomaly detection, and predictive insights, to help organizations gain deeper insights into API usage.
• Content caching: Standard v2 introduces content caching functionality, which can significantly improve API response times and reduce the load on back-end services.
• Integration with Azure Application Gateway: Organizations using Azure Application Gateway can now seamlessly integrate it with Azure API Management Standard v2, enabling advanced load balancing and traffic management capabilities.

Getting Started with the New Tiers

To start using the Basic v2 and Standard v2 tiers in Azure API Management, follow these steps:

1. Sign in to the Azure portal.
2. Go to the API Management service you want to upgrade or create a new one.
3. Navigate to the "Pricing tier" section.
4. Select either the Basic v2 or Standard v2 tier.
5. Configure any additional settings or options as per your requirements.
6. Click "Review + create" to review your selections.
7. Finally, click "Create" to create or upgrade your API Management service with the chosen tier.

By upgrading to these new tiers, organizations can unlock enhanced features, better performance, and improved reliability in their API management workflows.

Conclusion

Microsoft's introduction of Basic v2 and Standard v2 tiers for Azure API Management brings exciting advancements to the already robust service. With these new tiers, developers can manage APIs more efficiently, improve security, and gain deeper insights into API usage. Whether it's the Basic v2 tier for enhanced management capabilities or the Standard v2 tier for advanced performance and analytics, organizations now have more options to meet their API management needs in Azure.

Are you ready to take advantage of the new API Management tiers in Azure? Upgrade or create your API Management service today and experience the power of Microsoft's latest offerings!

Disclaimer: The information provided in this article is based on publicly available sources and may be subject to change as Microsoft continues to enhance its Azure API Management service.