API Management allows you to manage, secure, and evolve programming interfaces within an information system. Discover why this management has become essential and how to successfully deploy it with top solutions like Azure API Management, Google Cloud Apigee, or AWS API Gateway!
APIs are ubiquitous. They facilitate communication between applications, interface cloud services, and enable large-scale collaboration among partners. As companies digitize and open up their systems, interfaces multiply—often to the point of becoming unmanageable.
This results in siloed data flows, poorly identified security vulnerabilities, degraded performance, and an increasing dependency on external APIs that are frequently poorly managed. In the face of this complexity, a discipline is necessary to manage, secure, and capitalize on the interfaces of an information system: API Management.
Letting your APIs run unchecked? A bad idea!
At first glance, an API seems harmless. A gateway to a service, a simple URL, a few parameters. But in a modern company, there are often hundreds of APIs coexisting—some developed internally, others from partners, sometimes inherited from old projects.
Without governance, several dangers can occur. The first threat is security. A poorly protected API can expose sensitive data to unauthorized users or even to automated cyberattacks.
A forgotten interface, left in production when it shouldn’t be, can become a doorway into the entire system. The second possible issue is lack of consistency. When each team develops its APIs in isolation, without a common standard, you end up with redundant interfaces, different conventions, and inconsistent documentation.
Integrations become slower, errors more frequent, and technical debt can accumulate. Moreover, in the absence of centralized monitoring, it’s impossible to know which APIs are used most frequently, which have issues, or which should be optimized. You end up working blind. Managing your APIs is not a luxury but a necessity for any organization that wants to control its architecture, ensure the security of its data flows, and foster innovation without chaos.
A comprehensive toolbox
Managing APIs is not just about placing a firewall in front of a web service. API Management relies on a set of key functions that ensure the smooth, secure, and consistent exchange of data. First and foremost, one must know how to expose an API properly. This involves defining clear entry points, documenting parameters and responses, versioning changes, and allowing developers to quickly understand and test the interface.
A well-designed developer portal is essential because it is the doorway to your entire ecosystem. Another important point is to secure all access. Every API call is an attempt to communicate with a system.
It is necessary to know who is speaking, why, and with what authorization. API Management enables robust mechanisms: authentication (OAuth, JWT), granular access control, rate limiting, data encryption… All without sacrificing performance. And that’s a crucial point, because an API that slows down or crashes makes an entire service unusable!
API Management platforms integrate dynamic dashboards capable of identifying the causes of slowdowns, load spikes, or recurring errors. This allows for quick intervention, resource adjustments, or even the detection of suspicious behavior.
However, an API is not static: it evolves. New features are added, versions are deprecated, and responses are adjusted. Without a controlled lifecycle, these changes can break existing integrations. This is why it is important to define precise rules: who publishes? How to version? How to announce a change?
With API Management, these rules become formalized processes, enabling governance over time. Some companies go even further, transforming their APIs into full-fledged products. Through subscription portals, usage billing, and pricing plans, it becomes possible to open services to partners or customers while generating revenue.
The best API Management platforms
Managing API calls, filtering access, monitoring performance, and documenting each version ticks many boxes in API Management. However, it is important to choose the right platform that fits your architecture, tools, and ambitions. There is no universal solution, but tools for every use case!
If you use Power Apps, Power Automate, Power BI, or other Microsoft solutions, Azure API Management is a natural choice. It allows easy API exposure through custom connectors, secure access via Azure AD, and trace all calls via Azure Monitor. In addition, its integration with native cloud services is seamless.
On its side, Google Cloud offers Apigee: a complete and mature solution that excels in analysis power, API monetization tools, and its ability to integrate into complex architectures.
It targets large companies with performance issues, multi-level security, and fine governance. Its strong point is the granular control over the API lifecycle. At AWS, API Gateway is the ideal entry point for full cloud or serverless architectures. It integrates perfectly with Lambda, DynamoDB, IAM, and CloudWatch.
Ultra scalable and performance-oriented, this solution requires a good level of familiarity with the Amazon Web Services ecosystem. If you already have a well-established Amazon stack, it’s a logical choice.
Apart from these solutions proposed by the three Cloud giants, there are several noteworthy API Management references. Modular and open source, Kong Gateway can be self-hosted, deployed in the cloud, or used in an enterprise version with a complete management interface.
It also offers a rich ecosystem of plugins (auth, log, cache, transform…), perfect for a hybrid use or for microservices architectures. If your needs go beyond simple API exposure, MuleSoft Anypoint Platform is ideal. More oriented towards large-scale integration, it allows the connection of an entire information system via complex flows.
This allows you to connect your ERP, CRM, or legacy systems. Additionally, MuleSoft also excels in governance, data lineage, and documentation aspects. Less known, but increasingly used in Europe, Gravitee offers a complete solution both open source and cloud-native, with lifecycle management, authentication, analysis, and subscription plan features.
Its promise is a platform that is lightweight, modern, and extensible. It’s up to you to choose the solution best suited to your API volume, the level of automation you seek, and your existing technical ecosystem.
How to industrialize your API strategy without getting tangled in the code?
Adopting an API Management solution does not guarantee success on its own. To fully leverage it, you must build a structured approach, aligned with technical and business challenges. The first step is to set the rules of the game. Versioning your APIs, systematically documenting, publishing according to a clear process: it seems obvious… but it isn’t always.
Establishing standards from the outset helps to avoid drifts and maintain consistency as the number of APIs increases. Moreover, a classic trap is to entrust API Management solely to the IT team. Yet, a well-designed API meets a business need.
It must be designed with the end users in mind, whether they are partner developers, clients, or internal teams. Creating a clear and accessible developer portal is often a decisive factor. The third key point is to automate to breathe easier. Generating documentation from code, automating performance tests, integrating API deployment into a CI/CD pipeline: API Management integrates into DevOps.
Fewer manual operations mean fewer errors and more time for innovation. However, you must also think long-term. An API is a contract between two systems. You must therefore plan for changes without breaking everything, plan deprecations, and anticipate future needs. API Management precisely aids in accompanying this living ecosystem without losing track.
API Management and Power Platform: The art of connecting without exposure
In the Microsoft universe, APIs are not merely technical components. They are the fuel that powers the entire Power Platform. They are consumed by Power Apps to create dynamic business apps, orchestrated by Power Automate to automate processes, and linked to Power BI for near real-time data ingestion.
Problem: when each tool exploits a different API, with its own logic, rules, and vulnerabilities… it quickly becomes chaotic. Fortunately, Azure API Management acts as the orchestrator of interfaces. Its role is to centralize access, normalize behaviors, monitor usage, and regulate calls.
All within a unified governance logic. Consider the example of a Power Apps application designed for HR to view internal profiles from a legacy system.
Instead of directly calling the SI API, it is possible to publish it in Azure API Management to add an authentication layer like Azure AD, an API key, or OAuth. This allows for rate limiting and exposes this controlled version through a custom connector in Power Apps. Security is strengthened, the experience is smoother, and there is no longer a direct dependency on the backend.
The same logic applies to Power Automate: an external API (for example, a CRM one) can be encapsulated, transformed on the fly, and used in an automated flow without dealing with technical complexity.
Thanks to Azure API Management, it is also possible to monitor errors, trace calls, and adjust quotas during load spikes. Meanwhile, Data Engineers using Power BI can expose a “push dataset” API or feed a model via Power Query using connectors that go through an API Gateway layer.
Within the Power Platform, API Management is therefore both an industrialization accelerator, a safety net for security, and a keystone for a modern data architecture!
API Management, a solution for making your tools interoperable and robust
APIs, automation, connectors, orchestrations… data flows are multiplying continuously, and so is the need to maintain control. API Management is not merely a comfort, but a necessity for any organization intending to build a robust, secure, and scalable architecture.
In a rich environment like the Power Platform, it becomes an essential point of passage to link the components together: Power BI, Power Automate, Power App—all rely on well-managed, exposed, and monitored APIs.
The result: more reliable automations, more reactive dashboards, and more autonomous teams. To learn how to master these architectural, integration, and governance challenges, you can choose DataScientest.
Our Data Engineer training will enable you to learn to design robust data pipelines, handle APIs, use tools like Azure Data Factory, Databricks, or Azure API Management, and build cloud architectures designed for scalability and security.
We also offer certified training to master cloud platforms AWS and Microsoft Azure, including their API Management services. These solutions are also part of our DevOps engineer and cloud administrator training, as they’ve become indispensable for these professions!
Our programs are accessible via BootCamp, apprenticeship, or continuing education, and are fundable via the CPF or France Travail. With DataScientest, structure your data, orchestrate your APIs, and unleash the full potential of your data architecture!
You know everything about API Management. For more information on the same topic, discover our complete guide to creating an API or our article on the Power Platform.
