RESTful Rails Development

Chapter 10. Deploying an API

In this chapter we are going to see what options we have when it comes to deploying our API. Do we need an API management service? What services do we need to be provisioned and managed by third parties, and what can we develop in house? We will see how to deploy one of our APIs to OpenShift, a PaaS solution that can be used to deploy and host applications in the public cloud if you are not ready to invest in infrastructure. We will also familiarize ourselves with concepts like reverse proxies and we will practice with technologies like Ngnix.

How Is an API Deployed?

A RESTful API ultimately lives on the Web, or on a communication network where different parties can expose and consume data streams.

There are different aspects that need to be considered when deploying on the public cloud. For example, would an API management solution help you deploy your API? Or should you consider deploying with infrastructure developed and maintained in house? Which services are you ready to maintain yourself, and which would you like to have provisioned and managed by some third-party service?

There isn’t a general rule of thumb on how to decide which services you’d like to have managed externally and which you’d like to manage and develop in house. Generally speaking, everything that you develop yourself will go through the same design and development stages that your main product has gone through. So, the real question here is: do we have the resources and ...