What is an API?
An application-programming interface (API) is a set of programming instructions and standards for accessing a Web-based software application or Web tool. A software company releases its API to the public so that other software developers can design products that are powered by its service.
An API provides a new cost-effective distribution channel for your business to reach customers, empower partners and grow new revenue opportunities.
Do I have to re-write my API to benefit from 3scale services?
Not at all! We have designed our solution so that any API vendor can benefit from our API Management infrastructure with the minimum impact on your technical team. The integration between your API and 3scale infrastructure is actually pretty seamless: you can do it via a Plug-in or via the use of the 3scale API
What if I have already issued API access keys?
We offer you to work with you to integrate your keys within our solution so that your users will be able to use existing authentication with 3scale.
3scale enforces traffic limits at an API vendor level: if the contract you’ve subscribed to limits you to 1 Million hits on your API, we will only enforce a global limit of 1 Million. It is then up to you to define the maximum traffic you authorize to your API users.
3scale enables you to create as many subscription plans you need, each of them with their own specificities in terms of traffic, fee, methods available, etc.
What is the difference between the Synchronous and Asynchronous mode?
When you activate your service and connect your API to the 3scale back-end you have 2 ways to establish the communication: (1) synchronous and (2) asynchronous.
The synchronous mode performs one-for-one transactions between your API and 3scale back-end whereas the asynchronous mode allows you to perform a powerful and robust batching of multiple transactions in one report. For more information please consult the Batch Report section of the API Service Management page.
How secure are your API access keys?
3scale issues 32 characters, randomly generated and unique API access keys. The transactions between your API and the 3scale API Management infrastructure can be performed via HTTPS to secure them.
Do I need a proxy to manage my API?
No! Analytics services don’t monitor the traffic “in transit” but the traffic at one of the end points (the server or – in the case of Google Analytics – the client). Pumping all this traffic through a proxy would likely have significantly slowed down the web browsing experience and created huge traffic loads and unpredictable single points of failure (all of which are arguably even more critical for APIs than they are for Web Browsing).
API management services (including analytics, key management, limit tracking and others) are arguably much the same.
While a proxy based approach has some advantages (caching for example) proxy-less solutions are massively more scalable and flexible to set up:
They can be introduced with no impact on the API user experience since they can act out of band.
Infrastructure costs are significantly lower than for approaches that filter all traffic.
Many web companies already have well tested traffic handling infrastructures – which makes adding a further proxy layer a wasteful repetition of cost.
You can see the full discussion at http://techblog.3scale.net/
How does 3scale handle API traffic limits?
3scale enforces traffic limits at an API vendor level: if the contract you’ve subscribed to limits you to 1 Million hits on your API, we will only enforce a global limit of 1 Million. It is then up to you to define the maximum traffic you authorize to your API users. 3scale enables you to create as many subscription plans as you need, each of them with their own specificities in terms of traffic, fee, methods available, etc.
What size of eco-system of partners can I handle with 3scale?
3scale provides you with a comprehensive set of tools enabling you to easily and effectively manage your eco-system of partners and developers, whether you have half a dozen or tens of thousands of them. Whatever your partner strategy is, our tools will scale to your needs.
Can you scale up fast enough to handle the growth of my API traffic?
Definitely! Our service is running on Amazon EC2/S3 and thanks to our proxy-less API Management infrastructure we can scale up easily and fast to handle any traffic increase that your API will face.
Does 3scale have a data lock-in policy?
Absolutely not! Your data is and will be yours: all developer information, content and statistics can be downloaded from 3scale at any time.
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