What is new in WSO2 API Manager 3.1.0 Portals
WSO2 API Manager 3.1.0 was released a few days ago, With many qualitative improvements to its UI and backend with some useful set of features. In this blog, I will be discussing the new features we have introduced in WSO2 API Manager 3.1.0 portals.
Let me give the list of the feature first
New Features
- AWS Lambda as backend service
- API Security Audit with 42Crunch
- API Categories
- Generating Mocks for API
- GraphiQL for trying out GraphQL APIs
- Try out APIs using API Key, Basic Authentication or OAuth2
- Language switcher in the Developer portal
- SOAP to REST mediation editor
- More flexibility in managing API Resources/Operations
- Modify WSO2 Product REST APIs role to scopes mapping
- Bonus Point: Feature search
AWS Lambda as backend service
Now you can use your lambdas in your AWS account as the endpoint/backend service for the APIs in WSO2 API Manager.
API Security Audits with 42Crunch
WSO2 has partnered with 42Cruch platform to provide API security audit capabilities to API Publishers/Creators in WSO2 API Manager
API Categories
Now API Manager support API categorization as an out of the box feature, If you are familiar with previous API Manager versions, We support API grouping using tags(Tag-Wise grouping), With the introduction of native categorization, We have deprecated the Tag-Wise grouping feature and will be removed in the next release.
Now API creators can attach multiple categories to an API which are defined by the API Manager administrator. Then the API consumers can filter out APIs by the available categories in the Developer portal.
Different between tags and API category is, New tags can be added by API creators as they wish but API categories are defined by API Manager admin users and API creators can only choose from those categories that are defined by Administrative user. This allows organizations to have more controlled and structured API categorization as per the organization's needs.
Generating Mocks for API
Now API Manager generates mock/prototype implementation for your APIs using the Swagger(2.0)/Open API Specification(OAS)(3.x) definition.
If you create an API using rich Swagger or OAS definition with examples and response schemas defined, Then you will get mock implementations for your API resources/operations out of the box.
To see the Mock generation in action, Try this Open API definition in WSO2 API Manager 3.1.0. To import the definition to API Manager server (Follow the above gif or below steps)
- Open the Publisher portal
- Select I Have an existing REST API from the CREATE API menu
- Then provide this url in the swagger/OAS definition import URL input and click NEXT
- In the next page fill only the mandatory API Name, Version & Context inputs and click CREATE
- Now go to Endpoints page and select Prototype Endpoint -> Prototype Implementation and click ADD
- That’s it :) now you can see the auto-generated mock implementations for each of the resources
Feel free to play with the implementation ( it’s Javascript after all :) ) - Finally, To publish your prototyped API, Go to the Lifecycle page and click DEPLOY AS PROTOTYPE button, Now you can go to the developer portal and try out the API
GraphiQL for trying out GraphQL APIs
We have integrated the GraphiQL tool for trying out GraphQL APIs from the WSO2 API Manager Developer portal. Now you can build GraphQL queries using the Explorer plugin and it makes trying out and testing GraphQL APIs much much easier.
For more information about this tryout feature, you can go through this article.
Try out APIs using API Key, Basic Authentication or OAuth2
Earlier API consumers only able to use OAuth token to try out an API in the developer portal, even though APIs had other security schemes enabled, Now users can try out APIs with Basic Authentication, API Key Authentication, and OAuth Authentication.
Language switcher in the Developer portal
By default language switcher is hidden(disabled), You can enable the language switcher through the following configuration
<PATH_TO_APIM_3.1.0>/repository/deployment/server/jaggeryapps/devportal/site/public/theme/defaultTheme.jsAdd below config lines to above config file and just refresh the Developer portal page in the browser (Yes, no need to restart the server)
This is just a sneak-peek into this feature, I think this deserves a dedicated article on its own, So will write a separate article on i18n support in APIM 3.x portals. Until that hope, this wiki helps to understand the technical details about i18n implementation in APIM 3.x portals
SOAP to REST mediation editor
This was a missing feature in 3.0.0, Which we added back in APIM 3.1.0.
When the API Manager generates REST API from SOAP service definition (WSDL), We generate synapse based transformation to do the mapping of SOAP operations to REST resources.
Now you can modify the generated synapse code and add your own implementation as you wish.
More flexibility in managing API Resources/Operations
This is again a missing capability in 3.0.0, We have improved the resource editing capability in 3.1.0.
Now you can modify the API resources and also support modifying resources in the APIs imported from Swagger 2.0 definition as well
Modify WSO2 Product REST APIs role to scopes mapping
Now you can add or modify Scopes to Role(s) mapping for WSO2 API Manager product REST APIs from the admin portal UI.
Previously you had to edit a registry resource to add/modify Scopes to Role mapping. We have made it much easier with the new UI in the Admin portal.
This UI would be really useful if you want to use different roles other than Internal/subscriber, Internal/creator, etc . . . roles with your own role names.
Bonus Point: Feature search
Now you can search for features inside the API details page by searching for a feature name in Go To search input. To try this out, Click on the Go To button on the API details page and type the name of the feature that you want to locate. You will see a list of features in the dropdown. When you click on a search result, You will be navigated to the relevant page that the feature is located.
This way, We hope you would be able to easily find the things that you are looking for. Currently, this featured search is only available inside an API details page.
So, That is all about the new features in WSO2 API Manager 3.1.0 portals, I hope you find at least one feature that you are interested to have in the API Manager platform. If you like to try them out feel free to download the API Manager 3.1.0 release from here and run it. And if you like, You can follow the WSO2 API Manager Quick Start Guide.
