FAQs API Store
How can I find an API?
The APIs published in Nubentos are tagged to facilitate their location. You have all the tags in the left side section of the API Store, where you can select them so that only the APIs with the selected tags are displayed.
In addition to the tag system, the Nubentos API Store offers a search tool that allows you to locate the APIs using different criteria:
- By the API name, by typing the API name or a part of the name in the search field.
- By the API provider, typing provider: xxxx in the search field. The API provider is the user who created it.
- By the API version, through version: xxxx in the search field.
- By the API context, using the expression context: xxxx.
- By the API status, typing status: xxxx.
- By the API description, using the expression description: xxxx.
- By the API subcontext, with subcontext: xxxx. The subcontext is any resource defined in the creation of the API.
- By the content of the API documentation, using the expression doc: xxxx.
How can I subscribe to an API?
If an API available in the Nubentos API Store is of your interest and you want to subscribe to it, use the button “Visit Publisher Store” to visit the section of the Store of the company that provides that API.
Once there, you have more options, such as signing up for free. Being registered is a necessary condition to be able to subscribe to an API. The APIs that are deployed as a prototype can be tested without subscribing to the API.
To subscribe to an API you must be a registered user in the section of the Store of the company that provides that API. Once registered, you can subscribe to all the APIs that you want from that provider.
Keep in mind that being registered in the section of the Store of a company that provides APIs, does not imply being registered in the section of the Store of the other API providers. This means that whenever you want to subscribe for the first time to an API of a provider, you must register in its section of the Store. After that, you will be able to subscribe to the rest of its APIs.
Once registered correctly in the section of the Store of the company that publishes the API to which you want to subscribe, identify yourself using the user followed by the domain that identifies the section of the Store where you have signed in, with the same format as an email address . For example, if you have registered as “user1” in the Store of the company “company1.com”, you must identify yourself as “[email protected]” and your password.
Once identified in the section of the company that publishes the API of your interest, you can return to the API to subscribe to it.
For this, the first thing you should do is select or create an application. An application is an entity that allows you to group and manage your subscriptions in an orderly and decoupled way with respect to the APIs. You can have several applications if you want, and in an application you can subscribe as many APIs as you want, but each API will be subscribed in one and only one application.
To understand the role that the application can play in your use of the Nubentos API Store, keep in mind that it is from the application from which the security tokens are generated. Therefore, grouping certain APIs in an application will allow you to share the same token for different APIs related to each other from the functional or business point of view.
Also keep in mind that when you subscribe to an API, as we will see right away, you do it at a certain subscripton tier. But you can subscribe several times to the same API in different tiers in the same application. This can allow you to use each API with different costs depending on the final customer to which you are going to direct your product, depending on the API usage that you expect from each one.
When creating the application, you have different levels of throttling control (Per Token Quota) that you can use to control the global traffic of all the APIs subscribed in that application. If you do not find an adequate throttling policy, please contact us.
Once the application is created and / or selected, you must select the subscription tier to which you subscribe for that API, from the list offered by the API provider.
How can I test an API?
The Nubentos API Store incorporates an integrated console that greatly facilitates the testing of published APIs. In fact, there are several ways to do it:
- When an API is deployed as a prototype, you can try it without subscribing to it. To do this, select the API Console tab, and expand the methods you want to test, informing the necessary parameters. Click on “Try it out!” And see the response generated in the “Response Body”, “Response Code” and “Response Headers” sections. You do not need to provide an authorization token when the API is deployed as a prototype.
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When an API is published, you can try it from the Console API after subscribing to it. To do this, follow the following steps:
- Using the “Applications” option in the side menu, access your list of applications. This list will show all the applications created by you to subscribe to the APIs.
- Select the application with which you subscribed to the API that you are going to test, and select the “Sandbox Keys” tab. It is very important that you make sure that you are in the “Sandbox Keys” tab, to use the url of the test version of the API, and not the production one.
- Observe the expiration time of the token, which by default is set at one hour (3600 seconds). You can change it by the value you prefer.
- Click on “Generate keys”.
- Go back to the API and open the “API Console” tab. Note that the newly generated token automatically appears in the corresponding field (“Authorization: Bearer”). Make sure you’re going to try the Sandbox version.
- Expand the methods you want to test, report the necessary parameters, and click on “Try it out!”.
- See the result in the “Response Body”, “Response Code” and “Response Headers” sections.
- There are many external tools that you can use to test the published APIs in Nubentos, provided you have subscribed to them previously. From cURL, to SoapUI, through JMeter, Postman, ReadyAPI, etc., these tools usually offer advanced functionalities to plan more complex tests, such as load tests, test scripts, etc. In some cases it is necessary to install a plugin and / or configure the connection with the API.
How do I contact the API provider?
When you view an API, you will find the contact information of the API provider in the “Business Information” section of the “Overview” tab. In particular, you can see the business manager and the technical manager of the API, as well as their email addresses.
How much does it cost to consume an API?
Registering in the Nubentos API Store is free. So is subscribing to all the APIs of your interest. Testing the APIs to which you have subscribed, is also free. You also have no costs for the analytical tools.
Only the production consumption of the APIs to which you have subscribed through a payment consumption plan, has costs. If you subscribe to free plans, it will hace no costs in production either.
Each API shows a label that indicates the commercial mode in which it is offered by its provider. There are three modes:
- FREE: in this mode, all available subscription tiers are free.
- FREEMIUM: in this modality, some available tiers are paid and others are free. When you are subscribing to an API published under FREEMIUM mode, you decide if you subscribe to a payment plan or a free one.
- PAID: in this mode, all available subscription tiers are paid, usually varying in the traffic limitation per unit of time established by the API provider.
The only cost you assume when consuming an API is the one that corresponds to the subscription tiers chosen by you when you subscribed to that API. Billing for this cost will be sent directly to you by the API provider.