Gartner predicts that by 2020, 30% of the 100 largest software providers will have adopted a cloud only model, and cloud will soon become the default mode of deployment for software applications. This is not surprising considering the advantages cloud infrastructure can bring to the table, like better software integration, scalability, ease of access and low cost, to name a few. Organizations and teams are quickly switching to cloud based infrastructure and deployment models using IaaS and PaaS tools now instead of having to play ‘catch up’ in the future. Microsoft Azure is one such cloud computing and infrastructure platform for building, deploying and managing applications. Azure’s API Management system lets users manage and monitor the API program, exposing them to partners and consumers while flexibly scaling with incoming load. The biggest advantage of using Azure’s API Management system is that it lets you connect your back end services with any technology stack, while providing rich, near real time analytics and a robust developers portal with auto-generated mocks, code snippets and API catalogues. 
The most efficient way to tap into Azure’s API capabilities is through Swagger. This is where SwaggerHub can help with the latest Azure API Management Integration! With this Integration, you can design your API and manage its infrastructure on SwaggerHub taking advantage of its powerful API development features, while deploying and keeping it in sync in your Azure API Portal.
How it works
To use the Microsoft Azure API Management Integration, you will need an Azure account, and an instance of an API management service running on the Azure cloud. Like the other Integrations on SwaggerHub, for example, GitHub Sync, SmartBear VirtServer and the Amazon Gateway, the Microsoft Azure Integration can be added from the top right corner of the API. 
Once added, the following fields can be configured to allow SwaggerHub to sync the definition with the Azure API Management platform.
-
- Name: The name of the Integration, which will be shown in SwaggerHub.
- Azure API Management Service Instance Name: This is the name of the API Management instance on Azure to which SwaggerHub will export the definition into. More information can be found here.
- Azure API Identifier: This is an optional field which will allow syncing an existing API on Azure with the SwaggerHub API definition. A unique identifier for the existing API on Azure is required for this.
- Management API Access Token: The access token for providing secure access to the Azure API Gateway. Information on generating the access token can be found here.
And that’s it! Now every time you save your API on SwaggerHub, the definition gets synced and updated on the Azure API Gateway. To see the Integration in action, check out this short screencast!
Final Notes
A number of tools and services are required for the successful design, deployment and management of APIs, which touch on different aspects of the development process of software applications. SwaggerHub can now act as your centralized source of truth for your API definition while keeping it in sync with source control tools like GitHub or BitBucket, triggering events in your build process with Webhooks and finally deploying and managing the backend of the API using the Azure API Management or AWS Lambda Integrations. Try it out today at SwaggerHub! If you have any suggestions for new Integrations or want to see your product integrated with SwaggerHub, give us a shout out with a feature request here.