Setting Up and Launching API Dashboard

Fiorano API Management is quick to install and easy to use. The steps below illustrate how to install Fiorano API Management product as well as to launch the Fiorano API Dashboard:

Installing Fiorano API Management

Download Fiorano Platform using the .bin or .exe installer from http://www.fiorano.com/downloads/downloads.php which has an intuitive wizard to install the Fiorano setup as per scenario requirements.

Refer to the Installing Fiorano Platform documentation which lists the steps for installing Fiorano Platform.

In this document, "$FIORANO_HOME" refers to the Fiorano Setup installation directory.

Prerequisites

Installing Java

For the servers to run, JAVA1.8 (or higher versions) needs to be installed.

Download and install Java 1.8 from http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javase/downloads/jdk8-downloads-2133151.html.

Installing Cassandra Database Server

Cassandra DB Server needs to be installed as Fiorano API Management uses Cassandra as the data store for all information that is looked up while a request is being processed such as the subscriptions, clients, and distributed quotas. Cassandra Database is an open source database that provides linear scalability and high availability with proven fault-tolerance in storing details that need to be looked up on-the-fly.

Download Cassandra Version 3.x from the link https://academy.datastax.com/planet-cassandra/cassandra and please refer to the directions provided at http://cassandra.apache.org/doc/latest/getting_started/index.html to install Cassandra

If Fiorano servers are running in different machines, after installing Cassandra, to enable the database to be accessed from other machines, open the cassandra.yaml file present in the conf folder of Cassandra, and set the rpc_address property to the IP address of the system where Cassandra DB is running.
Before starting Cassandra 3.8 or 3.9 in Windows environment as a service, un-comment the property with name "cdc_raw_directory" in the cassandra.yaml file and set the value as <CASSANDRA_HOME>/data/cdc_raw.

Example

cdc_raw_directory: "C:/Program Files/DataStax-DDC/data/cdc_raw"

Fiorano API Management servers are preconfigured to use Cassandra Data Store URL and Keyspaces with default values as below:

DatastoreURL: localhost/9042
KeyspaceName: API

Advanced users may change these default values by following the steps mentioned in the Changing Cassandra Data Store URL and Keyspace values section.

To avoid a single point of failure of Cassandra servers, configure Cassandra as a cluster.

Setting up

Adding product licenses

Please contact Fiorano Support at presales@fiorano.com for licenses. Once the licenses are received, copy them to the FIORANO_HOME/licenses directory.

Starting API servers

Fiorano API Management product provides the server setups listed below:

API Management Server (AMS)
API Gateway Server (AGS)

API Management Server (AMS)

AMS acts as the central repository to create and access API projects. It hosts the API dashboard and incorporates Analytics engine apart from Managing access control and performing aggregation functions for APIs. The API Dashboard is also hosted on this server.

Starting the API Management Server

To start the AMS server, please execute the following command at $FIORANO_HOME/esb/server/bin:

Linux

Linux

CODE

./server.sh -mode ams -profile server1 -nobackground

Windows
CODE
```
server.bat -mode ams -profile server1
```

To know how to shut down the server, refer to the Shutting down the AMS server section.

API Gateway Server (AGS)

AGS acts as a proxy server for backend REST/SOAP-based web services. It receives client requests and performs activities such as authentication, traffic control and other features like caching, load balancing, and quota management.

There can be multiple Gateway servers running on a single network controlled by an API Management Server.

Starting the API Gateway Server

To start the AGS server, execute the following command at $FIORANO_HOME/esb/server/bin:

Linux

CODE

./server.sh -mode ags -profile server1 -nobackground

Windows
CODE
```
server.bat -mode ags -profile server1
```

Fiorano provides a pre-configured secondary Gateway Server Profile which can be started by executing the following command at $FIORANO_HOME/esb/server/bin:

Linux

CODE

./server.sh -mode ags -profile server2 -nobackground

Windows
CODE
```
server.bat -mode ags -profile server2
```

To know how to shut down the server, refer to the Shutting down the AGS server section.

When both the servers start, the Command prompt displays the content below as a confirmation of having successfully connected to the Cassandra database:

================ API traffic dataStore Initialized ================

In case the above statement does not get displayed on the Server Console, but displays errors as below, please check whether the Cassandra DB is running:

================ API traffic dataStore Initialization Failed ================

Default Cassandra setup listens to port 9042 for connections.
For higher security, it is suggested to run the Gateway server with SSL enabled on the Jetty.

Launching the API Dashboard

Fiorano API Management provides API Management Dashboard as a client GUI to assist in configuring and maintaining API servers and projects.

The dashboard is hosted at the following address after starting the AMS server:

CODE

http://<ip-address-of-installation-machine>:1981

After logging in with the credentials, the API Management Dashboard gets displayed as in the following figure.

Default username and password are 'admin' and 'passwd' respectively).

Figure 1: Fiorano API Management Dashboard

Analyzing the API management data

Fiorano provides an analytics tool to analyze the API traffic and other metrics. For storing these analytical data, Fiorano uses PostgreSQL as its datastore. Refer the Configuring Analytics Database section for configuring the same.

Configuring Analytics notifications

By configuring Mail Server in the Admin module of Fiorano API Management Dashboard, Analytics notifications can be received via email. Refer the Mail Server section to see the properties that need to be updated.