Introduction
How are the intelligent automation tools used? What problems do they solve? Read our introduction to shed some light on the matter.
API designer
The designer lets you create new services with the help of drag & dropping them from an UI toolbox into a microservice landscape. Each service can be connected to other services, and you have the ability to select available parameters, headers, HTTP methods and so on for the service.
A service is however more than just its request and response body. It typically have different constraints, validation and other complex conditions that needs to be met in order to implement the required business logic. To build the service logic, still without writing any code, the designer lets you build the desired functionality step by step. This is done by setting up samples for the service(s). The samples works as both the configurator and as tester for the service, verifying that the service(s) works as desired. To aid you further, the designer comes with proven design patterns and templates to get you started quickly. You won’t be required to start from scratch.
But I have a third party module that I need to integrate with, won’t that be a problem? Do not worry, we have places where you can inject your own code in the running application if required.
Each service landscape can be saved for editing at a later time, and you can have multiple service landscapes saved and ready to be loaded at any time.
Generating runnable
Once you decide that your service(s) are finished and ready for the world outside the designer, simply press the export button in order to generate a runnable application and documentation for your API.
The application is based upon the well known technologies of the Spring Framework. There is no limit on how many times you can re-generate your application. This means that whenever we update the underlying technologies, you will get the latest tech without the need to update your service configuration.
As stated in the previous context, the runnable can also be extended with your own third party libraries by implementing our interfaces.
If you decide you do not want to continue using the intelligent automation tools, you are free to take the runnable application and modify it as you desire.
Deployment
The downloaded runnable comes with Docker support and can easily be integrated in your Kubernetes cluster, or any other service deployment architecture.
The bottom line is that you decide how you want to deploy the running application. Deploy as a Docker image, a jar, or something else? We can provide guidelines how you set up the application in different environments, ranging from startups to larger enterprise level set up.
API refactoring
Introducing changes to your API after it has been released is often the case. It can be a time consuming task to make sure your changes are backwards compatible if verified and tested manually.
To update your API, simply load your service landscape in the designer and apply your changes. The designer keeps track of your changes and alerts you if you make non-backwards compatible changes, and recommends the appropriate action. For example, the changes could result in a v2 of your API since you introduced non-backwards compatible changes, or is it a completely different resource?
