The document discusses the importance of automating API management, outlining two approaches: imperative and declarative. It highlights the benefits of automation, including consistent deployments, reduced risk of misconfiguration, and faster time to market. Additionally, it introduces Tyk's support for both imperative and declarative API management solutions, emphasizing the advantages of utilizing GitOps and Kubernetes for easier infrastructure management.

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Ideas around
automating API
Management
March 2020 by Matt Tanner

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Product Evangelist @ Tyk
Matt

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What will we
cover today?
LET’S GET STARTED
Why automation?
A few considerations as to why automation can be
important
01.
Questions?
Time permitting, let’s answer some of your questions!
05.
Imperative API Management at a glance
A deeper dive into the concept of imperative APIM and what
the processes may look like
03.
Declarative API Management with Kubernetes
Looking at how APIM can be automated within your Kubernetes
environments
04.
What is declarative and imperative API
Management?
A quick overview of two common approach to automation
02.

4. What do I mean by automation?
Infrastructure as code, CI/CD, and managing code and infrastructure as it moves from
low to high environments
LET’S GET ON THE SAME PAGE!
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5. What are the benefits of
automation as a tech team?
AUTOMATE IT!
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Consistent deployments
Get away from the manual process of setting up
infrastructure and all it’s dependencies. Move from
local – dev > QA > prod more easily and
consistently.
Easier debugging
Instead of digging around through manual
configuration steps to debug your infrastructure
setup, just check the automated steps for errors!
Missing or misconfigured steps are easier to find
and fix.
Easier testing
When moving through environments, regression
testing becomes easier since infrastructure and
connectivity issues are less likely to appear and are
easier to troubleshoot.

6. What are the potential
business benefits of strong
automation within the
organization?
THE OTHER SIDE
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Less risk
Misconfiguration of infrastructure and the security
associated with it can be a massive risk for
organizations. Automation reduces risk by removing
the human error factor and easily interpreted
configuration files
Lower project cost
Setting up environments and troubleshooting any
errors that occur can lead to higher project costs.
Create your deployment configurations and scripts
once, then repeat throughout the rest of the project.
Faster time to market
Don’t have your tech team get bogged down in
setting up environment's multiple times, burning up
project $. Create your environment config and
continue to use it to setup higher environments
quickly and automatically.

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What is GitOps?
A QUICK ASIDE
Infrastructure as Code
Certain tasks which are traditionally handled by IT
Operations teams can now be handled and
automated by developers via code.
Declarative syntax
Using git and declarative syntax to describe how a
system/infrastructure should be created allows for
reproducible results. Consistently create the
infrastructure you need, more easily.
Continuous Everything!
Moving to a GitOps workflow for infrastructure
means that organizations can now embrace
Continuous Everything!

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Imperative vs.
Declarative
2 different approaches!
Imperative
A set of instructions to get you where you
want to go
Declarative
Say where you want to go and arrive

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Imperative APIM at a
glance
SOME CONSIDERATIONS
Who’s involved?
Product Developers
DevOps
What’s required?
APIM solution must have
imperative interface (available
API’s, etc)
Issues?
Can be brittle until common
issues are found
Outcome
Reproducible infrastructure
with varying consistency
(depending on deployment
method)
Pro/Cons
+Lots of tools support this
approach
- Dependent on infrastructure
state

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02
Create infrastructure
Run the created scripts
03
Define APIs
Create the API definitions in JSON
format and upload these definition
to Tyk
01
Define infrastructure
Create scripts/steps for
infrastructure creation.
04
Publish APIs
Publish your described APIs so
that they are now consumable.
What does imperative APIM look like from a
process perspective?

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Integrating this into Tyk
WHAT’S IT LOOK LIKE IN TYK?
Tyk Gateway APIs
API interface that allows for configuration of core
Community-Edition/Open Source gateway.
Tyk Dashboard APIs
API interface available in the enterprise versions of
Tyk that allows for configuration of enterprise
features (such as creating and managing
organizations in Tyk).

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Declarative APIM in
kubernetes
SOME CONSIDERATIONS
Who’s involved?
Developers
What’s required?
Kubernetes (cluster and pod
definitions)
Issues?
Knowledge of Kubernetes and
Microservice paradigm is
required
Outcome
Easily reproducible and
consistent environments
Pros/Cons
+ Set and forget
- Complexity for non-
Kubernetes users

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02
Arrive at desired state
Your solution is created and ready to
use!
01
Define the desired state
Create YAML definition file to define
the infrastructure and APIM
configuration
What does declarative APIM look like from a
process perspective?

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Integrating this into Tyk
WHAT’S IT LOOK LIKE IN TYK?
Tyk Operator
Our newest feature to support declarative APIM
right within Tyk.
Use the Tyk Operator to declaratively automate your
APIM experience in Kubernetes!

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01.
Automating APIM is possible!
Automating APIM is a great way to get closer
to fully-automated operations.
02.
Tyk supports imperative APIM
solutions
With the APIs available in Tyk, you can easily
take an imperative approach to your APIM
automation.
03.
Tyk supports declarative APIM
solutions
The Tyk Operator now allows for declarative
APIM to be fully supported within Tyk!

16. Try it out today!
If you want to automate your API management platform, give us a try!
THE TYK PLUG
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Questions or
comments?
LET’S HEAR IT!

18. Thanks for joining!
MERCI BEAUCOUP
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Try it out with a trial license and see for yourself just how
easy it is.