API Apps are web services (like Web Apps). You construct code that will be deployed on Azure and there are applications designed to call these API Apps.
On API Apps there is no UI (User Interface), its main responsibility is to manage data.
API Apps Benefits
When using API Apps you can take advantage of the benefits they offer, these are :
- Securing APIs, with AAD (Azure Active Directory), SSO(Single Sign-On) and OAuth (Open Authorization).
- Building APIs, in most well-known Program Languages like PHP, Python, Java, Node.js and of course .NET.
- Integrating with Azure Services like Logic Apps, API Management, etc.
- Creating API documentation using Swagger
API Pricing Tiers
API pricing tiers are separated into three main categories, these are Dev/Test, Production and Isolated. The last one (Isolated) which is still unknown for most, is for advanced networking and scale workloads.
Dev / Test
Included Features (F) / Hardware (H) |
| Custom domains – (Configure and purchase custom domain names [B-series, D-series].) F |
| Manual Scale – (Up to 3 [B-series] instance. Subject to availability) F |
| CPU – (Shared compute resources used to run applications deployed in the App Service Plan.) H |
| Memory – (Memory available to run applications deployed and running in the App Service plan.) H |
| Storage – (1 GB disk storage shared by all apps deployed in the App Service plan.) H |
Production
Included Features (F) / Hardware (H) |
| Custom domains / SSL – (Configure and purchase custom domains with SNI and IP SSL bindings) F |
| Auto scale – (Up to 10 [S Instance],20 [P, Pv2 Instance] instances. Subject to availability.) F |
| Staging slots – (Up to 5 [S Instance], 20 [P, Pv2 Instance] staging slots to use for testing and deployments before swapping them into production.) F |
| Daily backups – (Backup your app 10 5 [S Instance] , 50 [P, Pv2 Instance] times daily.) F |
| Traffic Manager – (Improve performance and availability by routing traffic between multiple instances of your app.) F |
| CPU – (Dedicated A-series (S,P Instance), Dv2-series (Pv2 Instance) compute resources used to run applications deployed in the App Service Plan.) H |
| Memory – (Memory per instance available to run applications deployed and running in the App Service plan.) H |
| Storage – (50 [S Instance], 250 [P, Pv2 Instance] GB disk storage shared by all apps deployed in the App Service plan.) H |
Isolated
Included Features (F) / Hardware (H) |
| Single tenant system– (Take more control over the resources being used by your app.) F |
| Isolated Network – (Runs within your own virtual network.) F |
| Private app access – (Using a App Service Environment with Internal Load Balancing.) F |
| Scale to a large number of instances – (Up to 100 instances. More allowed upon request) F |
| Traffic Manager – (Improve performance and availability by routing traffic between multiple instances of your app.) F |
| CPU – (Dedicated Dv2-series compute resources used to run applications deployed in the App Service Plan.) H |
| Memory – (Memory per instance available to run applications deployed and running in the App Service plan.) H |
| Storage – (1 TB disk storage shared by all apps deployed in the App Service plan.) H |
Conclusion
Since Microsoft started investing in the cloud, has provided high-end services to us. Azure API Apps is such a service. Even if someone has no deep knowledge of this service can deploy a new one in a few steps and start writing its code. You can see how to deploy your first API App in this link.