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I think I understand what API Mgt is and Orchestration. E.g. SAP PO and SAP CPI allow Orchestration.

I was reading the following statement:

Modern applications and changes in protocols and message designs also started to influence the ESB. A more lightweight integration components started to emerge, known as the API Gateway. An API Gateway doesn't have the overhead of adapters or the complex integration functionality of the ESB but still allows encapsulation and provides the management capabilities to control, secure manage and report on API usage.

Reading this is all a little vague imho. The following:

  • Does an API Gateway not allow for Orchestration? I think it does, as AXWAY state this in https://www.axway.com/en/products/api-management/gateway. I guess my point is what does the phrase from above "An API Gateway doesn't have the overhead of adapters or the complex integration functionality of the ESB ...". That said, may be such products are doing this for microServices and for the REST APIs we need to use separate products?

  • E.g. having read https://www.redhat.com/en/topics/api/what-does-an-api-gateway-do it is unclear to me if orchestration of REST API's is possible with an API Gateway or if this is only for MicroServices possible?

  • SAP CPI is clearly Orchestration, but is it part of API Mgt or API Gateway? I think the latter.

  • When I look at Amazon API Gateway it states nothing about Orchestration.

Sandra Rossi
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thebluephantom
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    API Gateways that I know and I've worked with have adapters that enables orchestration. One example is Google's APIGee. This is, by far, the most powerful API Gateway I've worked with. APIGee has a policy called `ServiceCallout`, which is just a configurable adapter that can do external calls to HTTP-based services, so it easily enables you to do orchestration. Axway also allow that, Sensedia API Gateway also allow that. _As a side-note_: this doesn't mean that I either agree or disagree with the pratice of doing orchestration in gateway layer. Maybe that's a disussion for another topic. – Matheus May 17 '21 at 18:55
  • @MatheusCirillo So, we have where I just started REST API's with Orchestration with SAP PO --> moving to SAP CPI. I think they are not API Gateways, do you agree? The API Gateways seem to imho catering for MicroServices. But you allude that there are API Gateways for RESTful API's? Please turn into an answer if you feel so inclined. – thebluephantom May 17 '21 at 19:03
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    I really have no knowledge in SAP PO or SAP CPI, but, I've read something from them, and it seems like, atleast for me, that SAP PO does much more than a API Gateway. It has a lot of adapters that enables easily integration with SAP and non-SAP systems - whereas an API Gateway does not (in the vast majority of cases, atleast). SAP CPI to me looks like PO in cloud (I could be wrong), so I would not consider it as an API Gateway. (I'm not saying that PO or CPI cannot act as an API Gateway - by what I read from them, it seems they can, but, also, they can do a lot more) – Matheus May 17 '21 at 19:26
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    And yes, API Gateways are vastly used in microservices architectures. API Gateways tend to be more lightweight than other heavy and complete integration platforms. In it's simplest form, an API Gateway would only receive a request and route it to the destination, but as the corporations's needs evolved, they also had to evolve - since I don't really know SAP PO or CPI, I prefer not to write an answer, but I'm giving you some insights about this topic so you can improve your research in this subject. – Matheus May 17 '21 at 19:28
  • @MatheusCirillo. correct on sap cpi vs po. i think i have the answer. the quote i had from a book seems vague. formulatecanswer if u will. thx, appreciated. – thebluephantom May 17 '21 at 19:35

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