What is Azure API Management?
Answer
Azure API Management (APIM) is a hybrid, multi-cloud management platform for APIs. It sits in front of your backend APIs (hosted anywhere) and provides: Gateway: routes requests to backends, applies policies (authentication, rate limiting, caching, transformation). Developer Portal: auto-generated, customizable portal for API documentation and developer self-service. Policy engine: XML-based policies for JWT validation, IP filtering, response caching, request/response transformation, and throttling. Subscription keys: manage API consumer access. Analytics: monitor API usage, latency, and errors. APIM is essential for exposing internal services externally, monetizing APIs, enforcing governance, and versioning APIs without changing backend code.