Azure API Gateway

Treblle’s Azure API Gateway integration provides real-time monitoring of your Azure API Management APIs through a serverless Event Hub and Azure Functions architecture.

This integration captures API requests, responses, and metadata without requiring code changes to your existing APIs.

The Azure API Gateway integration automatically:

• Real-time monitoring: Captures requests, responses, and performance metrics instantly
• Serverless architecture: Uses Azure Event Hub and Functions for cost-effective, scalable monitoring
• Policy-based capture: Uses APIM policies to collect API data seamlessly
• Multi-API support: Monitors all APIs configured in your Azure API Management instance
• Error handling: Built-in retry logic and error handling for reliable data delivery
• Easy deployment: ARM template and step-by-step deployment process

Architecture Overview

Azure API Management → Azure Event Hub → Azure Function App → Treblle API

This integration leverages Azure’s native services to provide real-time API monitoring:

• Azure API Management: Captures API requests/responses using policies
• Azure Event Hub: Provides reliable message streaming and buffering
• Azure Function App: Processes events and forwards to Treblle with error handling and retry logic

Prerequisites

Before you begin, ensure you have:

• Azure subscription with appropriate permissions
• Treblle account with API key and SDK token
• Azure API Management service deployed
• Azure CLI or PowerShell (for deployment) or access to Azure Portal
• Visual Studio Code with Azure Functions extension (recommended for development)

Installation Methods

Step 1: Clone the Repository

git clone https://github.com/Treblle/treblle-azure.git
cd treblle-azure

Step 2: Create Resource Group

1. Navigate to Resource Manager in Azure Portal
2. Click Create a resource group
3. Provide a name (e.g., treblle-demo)
4. Select your preferred region
5. Click Review + Create

Step 3: Deploy API Management Service

1. Go to Marketplace in Azure Portal
2. Search for “API Management” (APIM)
3. Click Create and configure:
   • Resource name: Your APIM service name
   • Organization name: Your organization
   • Administrator email: Your email address
   • Resource group: Select the group created in Step 2
4. Click Review + Create
5. Wait 20-30 minutes for deployment to complete

Step 4: Create Storage Account

1. Go to Marketplace again
2. Search for “Storage Account”
3. Click Create and provide:
   • Storage account name: Unique name (e.g., trebllestorage)
   • Resource group: Same as previous steps
   • Region: Same as APIM service
4. Click Review + Create

Step 5: Create Event Hub Namespace

1. Navigate to Marketplace
2. Search for “Event Hubs”
3. Click Create Event Hub Namespace
4. Configure:
   • Namespace name: Unique name (e.g., treblle-eventhub-ns)
   • Resource group: Same as previous resources
   • Region: Same region as other resources
5. Click Review + Create

Step 6: Create Event Hub

1. Navigate to the Event Hub Namespace created in Step 5
2. Click + Event Hub
3. Provide:
   • Name: treblle-events
   • Leave other settings as default
4. Click Create

Step 7: Configure Shared Access Policy

1. In your Event Hub Namespace, navigate to Settings → Shared access policies
2. Click + Add
3. Configure:
   • Policy name: treblle-azure-policy
   • Permissions: Check both Send and Listen
4. Click Create
5. Once created, click on the policy and copy the Primary Connection String - you’ll need this later

Step 8: Configure Azure API Management Logger

Obtain Access Token

First, get an Azure AD access token using one of these methods:

Using Azure CLI:

az login
az account get-access-token --resource https://management.azure.com/

Using PowerShell:

Connect-AzAccount
$token = (Get-AzAccessToken).Token | ConvertFrom-SecureString -AsPlainText
echo $token

Create Logger via REST API

Use the following REST API call to create the logger:

URL Pattern:

PUT https://management.azure.com/subscriptions/{subscriptionId}/resourceGroups/{resourceGroupName}/providers/Microsoft.ApiManagement/service/{serviceName}/loggers/{loggerId}?api-version=2024-05-01

Example URL:

PUT https://management.azure.com/subscriptions/4c5f0195-b813-4fc4-819e-2d2d8f1cd2b6/resourceGroups/treblle-demo/providers/Microsoft.ApiManagement/service/treblle-api-azure/loggers/treblle-logger?api-version=2024-05-01

Headers:

Authorization: Bearer {your-access-token}
Content-Type: application/json

Request Body:

{
    "properties": {
        "loggerType": "azureEventHub",
        "description": "Treblle Azure logger for API monitoring",
        "credentials": {
            "name": "treblle-events",
            "connectionString": "Endpoint=sb://treblle-eventhub-ns.servicebus.windows.net/;SharedAccessKeyName=treblle-azure-policy;SharedAccessKey=your-access-key"
        }
    }
}

Important: Replace the following values:

• {subscriptionId}: Your Azure subscription ID
• {resourceGroupName}: Your resource group name
• {serviceName}: Your APIM service name
• {loggerId}: Logger identifier (e.g., treblle-logger)
• name: Your Event Hub name
• connectionString: The primary connection string from Step 7

Step 9: Verify Logger Creation

1. Navigate to your Event Hub Namespace
2. Go to Activity log
3. You should see a log entry: “Add logger or update logger”

Step 10: Configure API Policies

Apply Policy to API

1. Navigate to your API in APIM
2. Go to Design tab → Inbound processing → Code view
3. Add the policy content from the repository: Policy-Content.xml
4. Update the logger name to match your created logger (treblle-logger)

Policy Configuration Options

• API Level: Applies to specific API
• Global Level: Applies to all APIs
• Operation Level: Applies to specific operations

Create and Activate Revision

1. Go to Revisions tab in your API
2. Click + Add revision
3. Add your policy changes
4. Click Create
5. Set the new revision as current

Step 11: Deploy Azure Function App

Create Function App

az functionapp create \
  --resource-group <resource-group> \
  --consumption-plan-location <region> \
  --runtime java \
  --runtime-version 17 \
  --functions-version 4 \
  --name <function-app-name> \
  --storage-account <storage-account> \
  --os-type Windows

Deploy Function Code

Using VS Code:

1. Install Azure Functions extension
2. Open the cloned project folder
3. Press F1 → “Azure Functions: Deploy to Function App”
4. Select your function app

Using Azure CLI:

func azure functionapp publish <function-app-name> --java

Configure Application Settings

Set the following environment variables in your Function App:

Step 12: Verify Integration

1. Navigate to your deployed Function App
2. Go to Functions → EventHubReceiver
3. You should see APIs being discovered by the Treblle Azure policy
4. Visit your Treblle platform → Workspace
5. Verify that all APIs are appearing in your Treblle dashboard

Configuration Parameters

How It Works

Integration Flow

The Treblle Azure integration uses an event-driven architecture:

1. Request Capture: APIM policies capture API requests and responses
2. Event Publishing: Data is published to Azure Event Hub
3. Event Processing: Azure Function processes events from Event Hub
4. Data Transformation: Function formats data for Treblle API
5. Monitoring: Processed data is sent to Treblle platform

Policy Configuration

The integration uses APIM policies at three levels:

• Global Level: Monitors all APIs in the APIM instance
• API Level: Monitors specific APIs only
• Operation Level: Monitors individual API operations

Performance Optimizations

• Asynchronous Processing: Event Hub enables non-blocking API monitoring
• Batch Processing: Function app processes events in batches for efficiency
• Retry Logic: Built-in retry mechanism for failed Treblle API calls
• Memory Optimization: Function configured for optimal memory usage

Debugging Steps

1. Check Function App Status:

az functionapp show --name <function-app-name> --resource-group <resource-group>

2. View Event Hub Metrics:

az eventhubs eventhub show --resource-group <resource-group> --namespace-name <namespace> --name <eventhub>

3. Check APIM Logger Configuration:

az apim logger show --service-name <apim-service> --resource-group <resource-group> --logger-id <logger-id>

4. Manual Function Test: Use the Azure Portal to trigger the function manually and check execution results.

The Treblle Azure API Gateway integration provides comprehensive, real-time API monitoring for your Azure infrastructure.

With event-driven architecture and serverless components, you can gain complete visibility into your API landscape while maintaining cost efficiency and performance.