After three months in beta, Google has announced the general availability of its Open API-based Cloud Endpoints (GCE) API management system, which aims to make it possible to build efficient, ready-to-scale API platforms, says Google.
GCE allows to deploy, protect, monitor, and manage APIs running on Google Cloud Platform (GCP). It consists of a set of tools and libraries to generate APIs and client-side code, with the aim to simplify the way developers access their backend services. A typical development workflow using GCE could look like this:
- First, create your CRUD API layer.
- Use Java Data Objects/Java Persistence API to define annotated entities that GCE translate into API classes. Such classes will present a public interface that includes methods such as
listEntity,getEntity,updateEntity, etc. - Generate the client-side library for iOS, Android, or JavaScript using GCE.
- Secure the API by adding features such as authorization, scoped API keys, user identification using Auth0 and Firebase Authentication, etc.
- Monitor your API usage and status and implement analytics using Google BigQuery.
GCE’s architecture is based on the Extensible Service Proxy (ESP), which, Google claims, can serve a request in less than one millisecond. ESP plays the role of server-side proxy, while at the same time providing traditional API management functions. This design choice is, according to Google, the key factor behind ESP performance and scalability, since it allows to skip a network hop. To put ESP performance claim into perspective, Google states that traditional standalone proxies display a latency in the range of tens to hundreds of milliseconds. According to Google, during the beta period GCE has been able to sustain up to 11,000 requests per seconds and 50 million requests in a day for different customers.
GCE supports backends running on Google App Engine or Google Container Engine (GCE) and its Extensible Proxy can be deployed using Kubernetes or GCE.
Going GA means that Google Cloud Endpoints is not free to use anymore. However, Google is offering a free tier that includes up to two million API calls per month. Beyond that limit, Google will charge $3.00 per million request. To start using GCE you can follow one of the quick starts that Google provides for different platforms.
