This document discusses NGINX Controller's API Management module. It provides full lifecycle management of APIs, including API definition and publication, security features like rate limiting and authentication/authorization, ongoing monitoring and maintenance, and analytics. Key capabilities covered include creating API definitions and publishing them to NGINX Plus instances, implementing rate limiting policies, managing API keys for authentication, and monitoring API gateway performance using customizable dashboards and alerts. The vision is for NGINX Controller to be an orchestration and analytics platform for all NGINX Plus products.

1. Achieve Full API
Lifecycle Management
Using NGINX Controller
January23,2018

2. Market Trends: Why APIs are Important
Introduction to NGINX Controller – API Management Module
Key Capabilities of NGINX Controller – API Management Module
1
2
3
Agenda
Confidential – Do Not Distribute
Vision for Controller4
Demo5

3. • Break down siloes and unlock data
(within and among organizations)
• Increase collaboration amongst
developers
Unlock
data
• Primary interface for communication
amongst microservices.
Create a
foundation
• Generate revenue and build
partnerships with third-party
developers and ecosystem of
suppliers, distributors, resellers, and
even customers
• Expose APIs via Dev Portal
• “Digital marketplace” for an
enterprise
Find new digital
revenue stream
Why Develop APIs?
3
External APIsInternal APIs

4. APIs Are Experiencing Explosive Growth
Source: https://www.programmableweb.com/news/research-shows-interest-providing-apis-still-high/research/2018/02/23

5. API as a source of revenue
5
Source: 2014 Search Security article:
https://searchsecurity.techtarget.com/news/2240222882/API-gateways-emerge-to-address-growing-security-demands
50% of
Salesforce’s
revenues come
from APIs
90% of Expedia's
revenues come
from APIs

6. 40%NGINX Plus deployed as an API gateway
Source: NGINX User survey
NGINX technology powers Capital One’s developer portal, Devexchange. It has
enabled the company to scale its applications to 12 billion operations per day, with
peaks of 2 million operations per second at latencies of just 10–30 milliseconds.
Third-party developers and partners can provide a first-class digital experience for
their customers as well as create new revenue streams by using Capital One’s APIs to
open bank accounts, generate personalized credit card offers, and track customer
rewards.

7. 7
NGINX Controller
Mission control for your
applications

9. API Management
API Management
Definition &
Publication
Security
Traffic
Mgmt.
(API GW)
Ongoing
Monitoring &
Maintenance
Analytics to
Assess API
Value
Onboarding
(Dev Portal)
9

10. What Is NGINX Controller
API Management Module?
10

11. Reduce Complexity with NGINX
11
Data plane (NGINX API GW) does not require runtime
connectivity to control plane (NGINX Controller)
• High Performance
• Same high performance regardless of where API GW is deployed (whether to handle
N/S traffic or E/W traffic)
• No need for additional software components such as microgateways
• Small API GW footprint
• Easy to deploy
Confidential – Do Not Distribute

12. Key Capabilities
12
API Definition & Publication
Monitor & Analyze
Performance
Overview Dashboard Customizable Dashboards
Troubleshoot Issues with
Alerts
Extract Insights with REST
API Support
Support for Multi- Cloud
Environment
Rate Limiting
Authentication &
Authorization

13. API Definition & Publication
• Create multiple API definitions using an intuitive
interface
◦ Create upstream groups and backend servers
◦ Create API definitions and resources
◦ Route resources to upstream groups
◦ Publish resulting config to NGINX Plus instances (API
gateway)
◦ Configures NGINX Plus as an API gateway based on
best practices
13

14. Rate Limiting
• Mitigate DDoS attacks and protect your applications by
setting rate limits:
◦ Specify the maximum request rate for each client, consumer,
or resource
◦ Enforce two-stage rate limits:
- Burst and reject
- Throttle and reject
◦ Protect API endpoints and ensure SLAs for API consumers
◦ Define multiple rate limiting policies based on the varying
needs of your API consumers
14

15. Authentication & Authorization
• Create and manage API keys for API consumers in order
to to authenticate and provide access to resources :
◦ Import API keys from external systems
◦ Share with API consumers
15

16. Monitor & Analyze Performance
16
• Is any API GW unavailable?
• When do we see a slowdown?
• Where are HTTP errors occurring?

17. Monitor & Analyze Performance
17
Deep visibility and insights into KPIs (per API GW
basis) using an agent:
• Visualizerealteamtrafficandsystemstats
• Analyzeusage& performancetrendsincludingfor
200metrics:
• System(OS )
• NGINX Plusinstance

18. Tag Your Environment
18
• Powerful way to organize and manage
your configurations
• Categorize API Gateways based on
location, person, purpose, environment
• Filter configuration by Tags

19. Overview Dashboard
19
• Overview page: Summarizes metrics
across multiple instances
◦ UniqueApplicationHealthScore:Aggregate measure
of successfulrequestsandtimely responses
◦ CPU usage
◦ Performance
◦ Errors
• Verify health of environment
• Helps showcase application health to key
stakeholders

20. Customize Dashboards
20
Measure what matters to you by creating
your own dashboard:
• Startquicklyfrompre-definedtemplates
• Createfromscratch
• Createdashboardsspecifictoan EntryPoint

21. Troubleshoot Issues with Alerts
21
Helps you meet your SLAs by ensuring
performance and reliability of your
applications:
• Receivealertsbased on thresholds
• Seeerrorsinrealtime
• Upcomingslackintegrationallowseasy
collaborationwithteammembers

22. Support for Multi-Cloud Environment
22
NGINX Controller is a Docker package
Canbe deployedonanypublic orprivate
cloud
CanmanageNGINX Plusinstanceson anypublicor
privatecloud

23. Extract Insights with REST API Support
23
REST API:
Securelyextracthealthand
performancemetricsandintegrateinto
monitoringtoolofchoice

24. Controller Vision
24
• Orchestration platform forall
NGINX Plus products
• Analytics platform forall NGINX
Plus products
• Modular,use case centric
approach
• Ecosystem friendly
CLIGUI
App Delivery API Management
NGINX Controller
Orchestration Analytics
NGINX Plus
Service Mesh

25. Karthik Krishnaswamy | karthik.krishnasway@nginx.com
Thank you!
Try API Management Module free for 30 days: https://www.nginx.com/products/nginx-
controller/#free-trial-controller