Akana Platform Overview

Akana API Management

The Akana Platform provides an end-to-end API Management solution for designing, implementing, securing, managing, monitoring, and publishing APIs. It is available as a SaaS platform, on-premises, and as a hybrid deployment. Learn more about Akana API Management features here.

What's new in Akana Platform 8.4

Akana 8.4 assures complete visibility and management of the API process – from development to production.

Build and manage well-crafted enterprise-class APIs with a complete view of the process.
Drive an efficient process that ensure only the right things get to production.
Complete an audited, thorough release process.
Implement controls throughout operations for robust API security and centralized management.

Akana API Management Architecture (click to enlarge)

API Security

The Akana Platform lets you secure your APIs, protecting sensitive data while allowing access to authorized Apps and users, click here for more information on our security solution. Security features include:

Rich authentication and authorization capabilities including; OAuth, OpenID Connect, Integrated STS, SAML 1.1/2.0, and JWT support
Built-in access control system and integration with leading identity and access management providers
built-in PKI and key distribution model including comprehensive HSM integration
Comprehensive OAuth Provider and Client - Use your existing enterprise security systems to create an OAuth authorization server so your users can manage access rights for their own data
Message Security - Ensure the privacy of customer data with sophisticated encryption and signature capabilities
Threat Protection – Protect your API against malicious and unintentional attacks with integrated denial-of-service and threat prevention

Video: Design a new API in the Akana API Designer (5:18)

API Design

The Akana Platform provides a comprehensive API design platform. You can use a graphical tool to design your API from scratch or you can import API descriptor language of your choice. Once you have your design complete, the platform will then automatically generate all the common API descriptor documents for you. The API designer supports:

Graphical API design – define your API with an intuitive graphical tool that allows you simultaneously design and document the API both for execution in the Gateway and publication in the Portal
Import and automatic generation of common descriptor languages - allow your API developers and administrators to publish APIs using the descriptor language they prefer, and your developer community to consume APIs using the descriptor of their choice. Supports; Swagger, RAML, WADL, WSDL.
Integrated lifecycle management – provide just the right amount of control over the lifecycle of APIs and Apps

Traffic Management

The Akana Platform allows you to control the flow of traffic through your APIs with a rich set of routing and Quality of Service capabilities including:

Throttling - control how much traffic each App can send to your API with throughput, bandwidth, and concurrency policies for each App
SLA reporting and enforcement - define, monitor, and enforce service-level agreements for each App consuming your APIs
Global Traffic Management – deploy API endpoints globally using our GTM solution to route traffic to the closest endpoint

Mediation & Integration

The Akana Platform provides seamless mediation capabilities, allowing you to create modern, well-structured APIs from legacy assets with ease. It provides declarative mediation out of the box and includes a comprehensive orchestration capability where needed to create APIs from multiple backend sources. Mediation & integration capabilities include:

SOAP to REST - quickly and easily take existing SOAP services and generate REST/JSON APIs
Security Policy - seamlessly manage the mediation between security policies, e.g. creating a REST/JSON API using OAuth from a SOAP Service with sophisticated WS-Security policies
Orchestration - create APIs from scratch, or by integrating multiple services together with a graphical process designer
Transformation - map content from one object type to another with both declarative (XML<->JSON) and prescriptive (XSL-T, FreeMarker) models
Scripting - write and deploy code in Jython, Beanshell, Java, or Javascript to augment your policies or orchestrations

Developer Portal

The Akana Platform includes a turnkey developer portal providing a social platform for API developers to design and document their APIs, and App developers to find and consume APIs. The Akana Platform is ideally suited to connect with different audiences:

Internal – Using the default theme, organizations can quickly deploy a turnkey, customizable, and brandable portal catering to the needs of both API and App Developers within the organization
B2B – Organizations can leverage the integrated role-based access control (RBAC) in the default theme, along with the ability to host the portal both internally and externally for different roles, to quickly enable an effective partner community where internal API Developers need to interact directly with external App developers
Consumer - API Development happens internally using the turnkey default theme, and external developers are supported via a range of models:
- Through branding and configuring RBAC in the default theme
- Using the simplified, turnkey developer theme
- Leveraging the Akana plugins in an off-the-shelf portal such as Wordpress or Drupal

API Analytics

The Akana Platform includes a powerful analytics engine. Built using a massively scalable, globally distributed noSQL store that is architected to meet international data privacy standards, click here for more information on our analytics capabilities. Akana's API Analytics solution provides:

Operational Analytics - monitor the performance and availability of your APIs, watch for trends and detect risk as it happens
Developer Analytics - track how developers are using your APIs, which packages, versions and offers they use the most, and gain valuable insights into how you can improve your API programs
Business Analytics - build dashboards that show how your APIs are impacting your business, identify high-impact areas, and monitor critical aspects as your business is evolving in real-time

Lifecycle Management

The Akana Platform is built on top of a fully featured lifecycle management system to help ensure that you are building the right APIs, that you are building them correctly, and that they are meeting the needs of your business. The lifecycle management system offers:

Asset Version Control - fully customizable workflow for APIs, Apps, and other assets. Multi-level approvals as needed, with full decision auditing
DevOps Automation - deep integration with common DevOps platforms such as Jenkins, JIRA, GitHub, etc., to enable agile processes while retaining control
Asset Relationship Visualization - visualize how assets (requirements, models, schemas, services, APIs, Apps, etc.) relate to each other, and hence fully understand the potential impact of any change or issue

Deployment Options

The Akana Platform is the only product that is equally at home in the Cloud and on-premises. Akana offers Cloud, on-premises, and hybrid deployment options:

Cloud - the Akana Platform is a global, on-demand, multi-tenant infrastructure offered to customers as SaaS. The Akana Platform is:
- Fully managed - Customers never have to worry about performance, capacity, availability, security, upgrades, or any of the normal concerns with running their own infrastructure
- A certified PCI DSS 3.0 Level 1 Service Provider
- Compliant with the EU Data Protection Directive for the processing of personal data and on the free movement of such data (also known as Directive 95/46/EC)
On-premises - the Akana Platform is proven over many years as the on-premises API platform of choice for large enterprise, it's ease of installation and upgrade is a major advantage
Hybrid - for customers looking for the best of both worlds we offer a true hybrid model where customers can run their own API brokers either on-premises or as an AWS AMI, leveraging the Akana Platform in the cloud to manage these brokers and provide the central developer portal

To compare these options, please see the pricing page.

Learn More

Datasheet: The Akana Platform

The Akana Platform provides an end-to-end API Management solution for designing, implementing, securing, managing, monitoring, and publishing APIs. learn about the capabilities of the platform.

Webinar: API Security

Web APIs heighten security exposure for enterprise information assets across the big three of information security: Confidentiality, integrity and reliability. Learn how some large organizations succeed in API security.

Get Your Demo

With Akana you can quickly build, secure and manage reliable easy-to-use APIs. Get started now by getting a customized demo of the Akana platform.

Learn more about our capabilities.

Open Source Support

Resolve open source issues ranging from package selection and setup to integration and production problems with expert, commercial-grade technical support.

See how we help

Predictive Analytics

Deliver sophisticated analytics without worrying about the underlying algorithms by embedding proven modeling, forecasting, and optimization functions within your apps.

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Dynamic Analysis

See and prevent execution, memory, and data issues on running systems with highly scalable and customizable dynamic analysis.

See how it works

Application Security

Protect your software against security risks by detecting vulnerabilities within code and during runtime. With advanced static code analysis, runtime debugging, predictive analytics, and open source scanning, you’re covered.

Strengthen your code

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