Azure API Management vs. Cloud Elements (discontinued)

APIM is useful for the standard scenarios:

1) Securing your back-end APIs - If you have a legacy back-end web service that has a basic authentication scheme, you can add some additional security by placing APIM in front, and requiring subscription keys. Leverage your existing firewall to ensure only your APIM instance can communicate with your back-end API, and you've basically added a layer of protection.

2) Lift and shift - there are always going to be clients that don't want to update their clients to use a newer API; in some cases you can make a newer API look like an older one by implementing some complex policies in APIM. You can also do the opposite, making older APIs look new, such as making an XML back-end accept both JSON and XML.

3) Centralizing your APIs - if you've acquired another company and want to make their API set look as if it's a part of the larger whole, APIM is an easy way to provide a consistent front-end interface for developers.

Incentivized

Cloud Elements shines when you want to offer multiple options to the user on a type of system, such as supporting integration to CRM and wanting to offer Dynamics, Salesforce, and HubSpot on equal footing. If you only have a single integration with a single system, using Cloud Elements adds an unnecessary layer of abstraction.

Incentivized

• Easy commissioning of APIs.
• Great policies to control access.
• Easy mock services for testing.

Incentivized

• The API itself is very robust and easy to use, being a standard REST interface, standard HTTP response codes, well-packaged error messages, etc.
• Their uptime is great! I think I've seen one (short) 5-minute' blip' the entire time we've been connected for any type of primary function.
• Their support is top notch, they respond quickly, and the team that works with you is communicative and knowledgable.

Incentivized

• Lack of robustness is a bit of an issue. Several other providers offer more options and capabilities, but then, they are lacking in interface ease.
• As with anything Azure, pricing is really hard to stay on top of. I always find that you really don’t know what you’re paying for until you get the bill. Having an excellent Azure Administrator can help resolve that.
• Integrating with app services outside of Azure can be a challenge, or at least much more challenging than just using Azure App Services.

Incentivized

• The only thing I can think of that they could improve is the quality of the assets they produce in the go-to-market process. This is a huge value add service, but the quality of what was produced was lower than what we would have produced internally. We spent more time going back and forth on the assets than it would have taken us to build them from scratch.

Incentivized

Azure APIM vs Amazon API Gateway:

1) Azure APIM was a complete package that included a developer portal.

2) We are very Microsoft centric - so the Microsoft product suite aligned very well with our business needs.

3) It was faster and easier to stand up Azure APIM for testing than it was for the Amazon API Gateway.

Incentivized

At the time we found Cloud Elements we found no other option that had a Unified API for cloud storage providers.

Incentivized

• We can always think of positive ROI impact on business
• It helps to easily facilitate the design, deployment, and maintenance of our APIs

• Not my area of expertise, but it made my job as an implementer much easier, especially after finishing the first integration.

Incentivized