I recently entered into some API management tools. I could see these API management tools can do whatever Data-power is doing and these are also placed in front of back-end services to protect the back-end servers.
So,what makes Data-power unique?Or is it fair to compare Data-power with API management tools as its competitors?If yes, why IBM itself brought in a tool named IBM API management?
Best Answer
Ok, so the API solution from IBM, now called IBM API Connect (APIc) is more or less just the GUI to handle, set or view your APIS and statistics about them. The actual HTTP requests (or IBM MQ requests) when using one of your API's goes through the API run-time. IBM offers two different run-times today, MicroGateway (former StrongLoop) or IBM DataPower. DataPower comes as either hardware appliance, a virtual appliance or as a Docker container. If you select to run APIc on DataPower you will be able to use all of the other features of Datapower as well (and there is a ton of them!). MicroGateway is a Node.js runtime so it requires its own server and cluster obviously. DataPower has built in cluster support and of course a DataPower appliance is built to sit Internet facing in the DMZ so all security is covered!
You will also have a few more functions/features in APIc using DataPower as the runtime.
So, to answer your question; No, it is not fair to compare APIc on DataPower with the competitors of "just" API solutions as DataPower brings in so much more to the deal. DataPower is a full grown gateway solutions for all your integration needs and it comes with FTP, sFTP, IBM MQ, Node.js runtime, HTTP server, SOAP WS-I, AS1-4, EDI (X12 and EDIFACT), etc. If you want to compare to other API vendors you should really compare APIc on MicroGateway in my opinion...
You can test both APIc and DataPower (Docker) for free in "non-production" use:
https://developer.ibm.com/apiconnect/getting-started/
https://hub.docker.com/r/ibmcom/datapower/