Technical requirements- Digital Transformation with IBM API Connect
By Isabella Morgan / May 11, 2024 / No Comments / IBM and Microsoft Exams, OneDrive for Business
In this chapter, you will be referencing a number of Swagger definition files to assist you with your learning experience. You can find these files in the Git repository at https://github.com/PacktPublishing/Digital-Transformation-and-Modernization-with-IBM-API-Connect.
You should copy the files for Chapter02 to your development environment.
In addition, you should download the API Connect toolkit by visiting IBM Fix Central and searching on API Connect: https://www.ibm.com/support/fixcentral/.
API Connect
In the previous chapter, you learned about several API-led responsibilities. In order to accomplish API activities (such as applying security, establishing rate limits, building and deploying using DevOps pipelines, and socializing your APIs), you need to be familiar with how API Connect makes those tasks easy to accomplish.
Currently, IBM supports three versions of API Connect (that is, version 5, version 2018, and version 10). At the time of writing, support for version 5 will be removed in April 2022. Version 2018 was released in April 2018. At that time, IBM was using release numbers based on the year of release. In 2020, they changed it back again to use a version number of 10, so v10.0.1.5 is the current latest version. IBM uses a version number strategy (VRMF – Version, Release, Modification, Fix pack) based on the following:
- Version: Major feature changes
- Release: The release of minor feature changes
- Modification: Manufacturing refresh also known as Mod Pak – full release with functionality updates
- Fix Pack: Releases with cumulative fix packs
There is also a special release called an iFix. These are special updates that do not modify the VRMF versioning. They have the _iFix<number> text appended to the version. An example of a previous iFix is v10.0.1.2_iFix002.
You can learn more about this terminology at https://www.ibm.com/support/pages/vrmf-maintenance-stream-delivery-vehicle-terminology-explanation.
Note
IBM refers to supported versions of API Connect as Long-Term Support (LTS). As new features are developed, IBM releases a Continuous Deployment (CD) version so that customers can try out the new features. These CD releases are not supported but are a way for customers to test out new functionality before their official release. The CD versions of the v10.0.2.0 and v10.0.3.0 enhancements were packaged into v10.0.1.5 as a new LTS version.
Since this book is focused primarily on developing APIs, you will not be learning much about the installation and cloud administration of API Connect. However, there are a few things you should be aware of to help with your overall understanding of API Connect and its components.
The most important change you should be aware of is that beginning with version 2018, all of the implementations of API Connect are now built on microservices. This means all servers (including VMware implementations of OVA files) are running on Kubernetes. As discussed in Chapter 1, Digital Transformation and Modernization with API Connect, containerization might be one of your company’s goals in modernization. With API Connect running containerized components, you are already on your way. You have multiple options in which to deploy API Connect running Kubernetes, such as the following:
- Kubernetes on bare metal (Ubuntu and RHEL)
- VMware
- OpenShift or as part of IBM’s Cloud Pak for Integration (CP4I)
To check the requirements for installing API Connect, please refer to the IBM Software Product Compatibility Report at https://www.ibm.com/software/reports/compatibility/clarity/softwareReqsForProduct.html.
As shown in the following screenshot, you can choose various tabs to obtain additional details about the system requirements:

Figure 2.1 – Software compatibility report
Note
One excellent resource is the deployment white paper on API Connect. You can locate it here:
Now that you have been introduced to the various deployment implementations, we’ll move on to the components of API Connect.