6.1.1. Implement API Management

💡 First Principle: The fundamental purpose of API Management is to provide a centralized, secure, and governed facade for backend services, abstracting complexity and enabling consistent policy enforcement for all API consumers.

Scenario: You have several backend microservices that expose APIs directly. You need to provide a unified, secure, and managed entry point for external developers to consume these APIs. This requires implementing authentication, enforcing usage limits, and transforming requests/responses without modifying backend code.

What It Is: Azure API Management (APIM) is a hybrid, multi-cloud platform for publishing, securing, transforming, and monitoring APIs across any environment. It enables organizations to expose backend services as APIs to both internal and external consumers, ensuring consistent security, governance, and analytics.

This section will cover the core components, key features, and common use cases of APIM, followed by detailed implementation steps for creating an instance, publishing APIs, and applying policies.