Layer7 API Management Other Advice

Ronald D'Souza - PeerSpot reviewer
Presales Consultant for CA Southern Africa at Hyperion Holding Pty Ltd

Broadcom API Gateway has always been a stable product for Security, Development, and Integration services.

With the help of assertion, you can build a service that could communicate with backends - DB, GraphQL Server, Rest Server, Soap Server, and a variety of backend applications.

It provides a tool for the consolidation and orchestration of your API and APPLICATION.

It provides means to access the API with key and secret providing an interface for Developer and API Owner to Collaborate and Share knowledge in the wide community.

With top-down rule-driven policies, it becomes easy to write business logic to meet your Application data extraction and deployment needs.

There are many places where API Gateway will be a good/excellent fit for your requirement and some places where it may not be a right fit.

A dispersed environment needs consolidation. This gateway is your solution but APIs that will have a high query (database activity, extensive translation, and more logic) are possible to achieve but may require planning (e.g. splitting the task between gateways for high processing vs high-security requirements). These activities should also be clustered to get the best performance of the application so this consideration would need to be made when building Complex API with API Gateway.

The idea here or approach would be to think big but also ensure it can be sustained with your resources.

API Gateway with minimum configuration OOB could provide an awesome TPS for your API and transaction needs, which is one of the reasons why banks, Retailers and other customers prefer this tool over the others.

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MohammadImran - PeerSpot reviewer
Deputy Manager at ICICIBANK Ltd

Layer7 API Management's availability on an on-premises deployment model, actually decreases the production time if its users have any issues at the server level. Other API management tools are available on the cloud infrastructure, so if anything happens with the server, then users have to connect with the different teams to resolve the issue. When it comes to Layer7 API Management, if a user has an on-premises setup, then such a user can work with the server issues, which will help the user to resolve the issue within the time instead of having to connect with customer care for support. If users have a good technical team, then you can directly work with the tool at the server level.

I rate the overall tool a nine out of ten.

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Arpit Agarwal - PeerSpot reviewer
Enterprise API Architect at Al-Futtaim Group

On a scale from one to ten where one is the worst and ten is the best, I would rate Layer7 as a nine. Right now it is a bit premature to rate the product overall but in terms of the disappointment in the community support opportunities, I would rate it as a seven as of now.  

I think with the situation that we are in and with the current economic atmosphere, there is definitely a reason for those looking for an API solution to also consider open-source products. Instead of going with the proprietary products, sometimes considerations depend on the size of the organization and the budget. Every organization should first analyze what they need. If they need an enterprise-class product definitely Broadcom Layer7 is a good solution. But if an organization can manage their needs with an open-source product, or the team has a good knowledge of the APIs and the ability to customize, then I think that open-source can be a viable option. As long as the product is sufficient to fit the needs, moving forward with some sort of an open-source product is just as well.  

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Buyer's Guide
Layer7 API Management
March 2024
Learn what your peers think about Layer7 API Management. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: March 2024.
765,234 professionals have used our research since 2012.
SM
Director IT Services at Telomeres

My company provides Layer7 API Management to customers.

I'm working on the latest version of the product.

Six to eight team members handled the Layer7 API Management deployment. Some worked on the data, while some worked on the network, hardware, and software configurations.

Approximately two hundred to three hundred people use Layer7 API Management, particularly clinicians, nurses, and patients.

Layer7 API Management only requires a little maintenance. It only has one upgrade every six months, and my company has an affiliate that handles the maintenance, especially severity three issues. My company will address any level one or two issues.

My rating for Layer7 API Management is eight out of ten.

My company is a partner and reseller of Layer7 API Management.

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VK
Enterprise Integration Architect at a retailer with 10,001+ employees

Overall, I would rate Layer7 API Management as a five out of ten.

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SZ
CA Layer 7 API Gateway Administrator at a computer software company with 10,001+ employees

We have large enterprise customers for Layer7 API Management, and I rate it a nine out of ten. 

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PC
Assistant Consultant at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees

I rate Layer7 API Management eight out of 10. There's a steep learning curve, and I have spent two or three years looking at the documentation that comes with it. It's a bit difficult compared to some other products like Apigee.

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SP
Sr. Systems Engineer at a hospitality company with 1,001-5,000 employees

I rate CA API Management as an eight out of ten due to the overall stability of the product. So, we had this implemented and running fine unless we had increased traffic. We never went back and tuned it. In that way, I'm pretty happy with that.

It loses the last two points because of the monitoring, as well as the capacity analysis and planning our day-to-day transaction details.

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HK
Director of Architecture at a healthcare company with 10,001+ employees

The product overall on a scale of 1 to 10 - from a scalability standpoint I would give it an 8. I would certainly give 8, because although I would have loved to go 9 or 10, no product in this world can scale any needs from the get-go but the customer service and the technical support has been outstanding. They have been very helpful so at least they are helping us out. Considering CA from an holistic perspective, not just the product, their ability to meet our needs, their ability to support us, their ability to answer our calls, and answer our specific technical questions, I think I would rate them an 8.

People tend to support what they have done in the past. It's always the case. If you ask a mainframe programmer he would say mainframe is the most rock solid stable platform in this world. I would say because we have lived in CA API Management I would say absolutely you have to use CA API Management.

Jokes apart, the customer has to know the capability of API management software. I see a lot of people asking me if I decoupled services in API management. API Management software's purpose is not to do decoupled services. It's to make your services available on the Cloud. It acts as a security gateway so that your consumers can access your services. One needs to know what he's looking for. These are the fundamental characteristics of an API management software. If you compare those characteristics CA API Management leads the industry.

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RaviVerma1 - PeerSpot reviewer
Lead API Engineer at Boubyan Bank

This is a good solution. However, it would be ideal if they had a technical team because there is a need for some basic coding knowledge. It requires comprehensive Java knowledge.

I rate Layer7 API Management an eight out of ten.

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VN
Architect at a computer software company with 51-200 employees

I would choose Layer7 API Management's alternatives since it is not current. I rate it a five out of ten. 

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RB
Principal Architect at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees

The solution is difficult to maintain because we have to do many scripting in layer7. A lot of Java code was written, and transformations were done.

When selecting an API management solution, we carefully consider various parameters, including the specific needs of our customers. For instance, if a customer requires a comprehensive API management solution with advanced features, Layer7 API Management is an excellent choice. However, if a customer needs a basic gateway solution with limited reporting capabilities, we can accommodate their needs on their preferred cloud platform, AWS. Moreover, we have extensive experience implementing enterprise solutions with the necessary investment capacity and specific requirements. Additionally, we prioritize solutions that enable seamless integration within hybrid architectures. To ensure we make informed recommendations, we conduct thorough comparisons based on over 45 parameters, drawing insights from our current implementations and customer feedback. Our approach is adaptable and may evolve based on evolving requirements.

Overall, I rate the solution a seven out of ten.

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UP
Lead Consultant at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees

I would rate it an eight out of ten.

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ES
API Technical Lead at Sanlam

We are very happy with the solution. The product set currently falls within our development area and that is a good fit.

Some companies would tend to bundle this with security or networking as the product set also functions as a security device. By placing it in security, you are limiting yourself a lot and will never reach the full potential of all the product's capabilities. You need technical in-house people with development background to run the product set.

Constantly look at all the features. I found that when revisiting components, which were not important a few months prior, you realise in some meeting a question about a "new" capability would come up.

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MJ
Lead Architect at a energy/utilities company with 1,001-5,000 employees

CA API Management is a pretty solid product for what we are using it for. It's been good. It has served our purpose and kept us out of trouble.

Evaluate what's out there in the industry. Make sure that you chose the right product for your use cases.

I would rate this solution at about six out of ten, overall. At the time when we were evaluating it, it was about the complete lifecycle management. We were looking to build APIs to legacy systems, using IDE deployment strategies - all of those things were lacking. Products like MuleSoft and Apigee had better, more robust software development approaches for both mobile as well as web-based or batch processing.

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it_user778824 - PeerSpot reviewer
Design Engineer at Automatic Data Processing, Inc.

Getting new security standards so quickly into the product is definitely a new surprise. In the CA World, I am seeing a lot of new subproducts that they are introducing, which I was not even aware of. I think that definitely surprised me that CA is investing in the CA API management product and building new offerings and new solutions, which is really nice. That is where the industry is going and they are putting their time and efforts in the right solution and the right product.

The gateway and the new offerings that they are coming in are very capable. The two points that I am missing are primarily from the development standpoint. 

I would suggest CA API Gateway to my friends in some other companies who are trying to deliver it: more from the security standpoint, the ease of setting it up, using it, and customizing it. Those were the key factors that I would be promoting about this product to my colleagues or friends.

Most important criteria when selecting a vendor: Support and the new features that they bring into the product. Those are the key things based on which we are selecting the CA API Gateway

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AS
ALiBS Solutions at ALiBS Solutions

I would recommend this solution to others. I really like the solution.

I rate Layer7 API Management a nine out of ten.

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it_user581829 - PeerSpot reviewer
Solution Architecture / Digital Architect at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees

CA API Gateway provides rich policy sets in regards to XML and REST services. This baby is great for all B2B integrations and it’s a very agile component to set up and use. You can set it up with complex security requirements on your service side in less than an hour. (I am very biased about this. No product can do that at this speed.)

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it_user491508 - PeerSpot reviewer
Sr Software XML Gateway Developer at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees

This is a good tool compared to open source solutions. There still is a lot to be done to improve user experience.

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AT
GM - Head of Digital Transformation at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees

With respect to supporting a large number of APIs and/or a large number of transactions, we didn't use it for a large number of transactions. It was a PoC so we only used it for limited connectivity. But from what I've read and from what I've heard from other users, the volume management and traffic flow management is actually pretty good for CA's tool.

I would rate the solution at six out of ten, overall. It didn't meet all of our needs.

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JK
Senior Director IAM Security Engineering at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees

I would suggest you take a look at all of the components. The API Management Suite that CA offers is broader than simply the API Management Gateway. The Suite has some features, extra components, that really make for a much easier and more accessible way a way of doing API management within the enterprise. There are components like the Mobile API Gateway and Live API Creator. These additional components really expand what the products can do, in a way that makes your value proposition easier to present to the business.

I would say this solution is a solid eight. It does everything that it says that it does. It would get a higher rating if it had a little cleaner interface and was easier to administer, but I think that's a pretty solid rating for a product like this.

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it_user881124 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Director at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees

I would suggest you do a PoC with CA, for feasibility.

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it_user482415 - PeerSpot reviewer
Principal Architect at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees

On a scale of one to ten, I would give CA API Management a nine. The scalability of the Gateway is pretty straightforward and easy, because it's simply contained within as an image, or as a simple container form. You can easily deploy and add, and it supports a cluster architecture so that you can add new nodes on the go and it automatically gets all the things that is already available, so that is pretty neat.

I would always go back and look at the business benefit behind it rather than the technical aspect. We have to think from the business standpoint, "Why do you need API Management? Do you want it to be more of an API company or you're selling your API, or you want to do an omni-channel approach? Or what is the reason, are you simplify the integration?" That drives lots of real value and that gives you full feasibility why you wanted to bring in an API Management solution. I would recommend to analyze that aspect before you try to purchase an API Management solution.

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YH
Software Developer III at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees

We have found it's really difficult to find the right resource in our Canadian market. It is more difficult to hire new developers who can support Layer7 API Management.

My advice to those wanting to implement this solution is if they have the right resource, this is a really nice product and I recommend it because it's really flexible and that they can build and customize with the vendor directly. I really am with this product.

I rate Layer7 API Management a nine out of ten.

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JV
Senior System Engineer at a tech services company with 51-200 employees

I'd rate it an eight out of 10, no solution is perfect.

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it_user558072 - PeerSpot reviewer
Infrastructure Middleware Manager at a wellness & fitness company with 10,001+ employees

When selecting a vendor, look at the partnership with the company. See if they're able to listen to you about your needs. See if they are able to respond quickly. See that the product provides good value. Work closely with the vendor to make sure you get things set up correctly. If you don't, you'll be very disappointed.

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it_user17886 - PeerSpot reviewer
Manager, IT Security & IT Office of the CIO at a engineering company with 1,001-5,000 employees

It fits in well with our other security middleware. We’re also a SiteMinder customer so there are some synergies there. When CA bought Layer 7, that was a good thing for us, and we sort of fell into those kinds of synergies.

They should make sure they find a product that supports industry security standards, and has good management capabilities, good manageability.

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it_user882708 - PeerSpot reviewer
Business Development - Alliances and Partnerships at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees

My advice would be, if it is a really complex integration with multiple protocols, multiple APIs, where security is the key, I think you should look at the CA solution. That is where it fits best. If it is you're looking at it more as an enterprise integrator, that you need to integrate internally within an organization and its IT functions, then I would suggest that you talk to CA and see how best the product can be used; you will consultation.

It's a very stable, scalable product with good security features. It does the job well.

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PB
Computer Scientist at a tech company with 10,001+ employees

My advice would depend on the use case. If it's just a proxy solution that you are looking for, I would say don't go for CA API Gateway because API Gateway is much more than that. If you're looking for a complete API developer platform and securing your APIs, then CA API Gateway is a good product.

I give this solution an eight out of 10 because, as an end customer, in terms of managing my API lifecycle, end-to-end, it is pretty good.

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it_user778875 - PeerSpot reviewer
Lead Software Developer at United Services Automobile Association

I don't really select the vendors, but my most important criteria would be

  • available support
  • industry use of the tool
  • that it can solve all the problems I need it to solve, as many out-of-the-box without customizing it as possible.

CA is great. It depends on your use case of course, how much you want to go with that, because it can get pricey and depends on the size of your company. I've got a bunch of friends with little start-ups, so it's nothing they would be able to onboard, but I would definitely tell them to check it out.

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it_user572838 - PeerSpot reviewer
Manager, .Net And Mobile Applications Development at a energy/utilities company with 1,001-5,000 employees

I think it can get better, and it has over the different versions. 9.1 came out, and it offered some more functionality. They've added more products around the solution to make it better, so I think there's always room for improvement. I think it's been very, very stable for us. It's worked every time we've needed it, and it's allowed us to do a lot better for as a company.

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it_user479754 - PeerSpot reviewer
Founding Partner - Principal at Vanick Digital

It depends on the customer and the industry. Typically, the customers are choosing CA because of the broad capabilities of the gateway, the performance of the gateway; the gateway is one of the top performing gateways in the market, and security. It's absolutely the best security product in the market from a gateway perspective.

I give it a 9, because everybody's got room for improvement. I would definitely recommend the product. As you start looking at releasing APIs, some of the biggest concerns that we have are performance, because consumption is based on how usable the API is. When you start looking at the architecture that CA has put together in giving you the ability to cache information from the front side request, cache information from the back side request, and then create your own caching capabilities to improve that performance, that is a huge benefit and a huge consideration in making a product determination.

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it_user778794 - PeerSpot reviewer
Technical Principal at FedEx Corporation

CA is worth trying. It is definitely a key contender in the API management space.

Most important criteria when selecting a vendor: size and brand value.

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SP
Sr. Systems Engineer at a hospitality company with 1,001-5,000 employees

Make sure you involve networking, security, and other infrastructure teams for the implementation.

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it_user482193 - PeerSpot reviewer
Sr. Manager - Delivery, Enterprise & Platform Architect at a tech company with 10,001+ employees

Rating: for CA API Management I would give it a 9 out of 10, but for the developer portal I would give it a 6 out of 7. ESM I would give a 5 out of 6.

It's definitely a great product, I would ask to have an open mind and check out the features. I haven't seen any problems, and I have seen so many problems in my previous product, with ESB, so it's definitely a top notch product.

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GS
Technical Director at SoftPro

I would not recommend the product based on how it has performed to implement it. I did not like working with the product.

We have not used it to modernize legacy systems via microservices, APIs, or developing a new platform for mobile. We also did not use it for connecting data to apps via APIs.

I am not familiar with the security aspects of the solution.

We stopped offering the product as a service a month ago since the product no longer belongs to CA. In Taiwan, I believe no one will buy CA products anymore because it is no longer trustworthy as a company, since the products are no longer supported.

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it_user778806 - PeerSpot reviewer
Owner at Clarity Iq Inc

When selecting a vendor, there are a couple of things that you have to look at. One is: Are they going to be around? That's always a concern because if you've committed to something and the rug gets pulled out from under you, then you're scrambling. Depending on the time that happens, you might not have the time or the money to scramble. What if you're in the middle of a big implementation? CA has been around since the beginning. They're a four billion dollar a year company, something like 13,000 employees, I'm not worried about that. Yet they're easy to work with.

There are a couple of products that I work with that have not let me down, and there are a lot of products that have. I always use Microsoft Excel of an example of this. Excel is a wonderful product, you can do so much with Excel, it's an incredibly powerful product. But there are many times where Excel just leaves me short. I just can't do what I need to do with it. It has limitations, fundamentally.

There are a couple of products that I've worked with in my life that I haven't run into that. Maybe I still will someday, I don't want to be delusional, but this product, when I've had a need, I've been able to get it to work and that's nice, I like that.

It's hard for me to give tens, but I would give it a 10 out of 10.

My advice would be: Focus on its extensibility because of that exact issue we just discussed. There are so many times when you look at a product that is a tool to make something easier. Maybe you're building a web-based application. There are a number of tools on the market that make that a drag-and-drop opportunity or a drag-and-drop process. Those tools are great for the weekend warrior, you can get something done quickly. Maybe you're a high school kid and you want to build an app for something. (Access database would be like that too. You can get a database and it's not that hard, and you can make a form, but they're not enterprise class). 

This product, at first blush, looks something like it's one of those weekend warrior tools, but it's not. It's an enterprise-class tool with the kind of usability that you wouldn't expect. And with that usability - how do you have your cake and eat it too? Well, it's because of the product's extensibility. It's very well-integrated with your existing Java library of processes and procedures, as well as your ability to write new extensions to it. You get so much of the base functionality but you don't give up the ability customize.

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it_user778812 - PeerSpot reviewer
Technical Principal at FedEx Corporation

From CA's new technologies, it looks like CA is moving in the right direction.

Look to your performance matrix and your benchmarks. What are you interested in? If you are looking for support, this is definitely the best solution. 

Most important criteria when selecting a vendor: Performance is one of the major ones. Security is another. 

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it_user779280 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Manager Global Devops at Encore Capital Group

When choosing a company to work with and buy from, they need to be industry-rated, they need to be one of the upper-right companies for strength, vision, and performance.

If I were advising a colleague at another company who's searching for a similar product I would tell them to talk to CA.

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it_user778716 - PeerSpot reviewer
Solution Architect at a pharma/biotech company with 1,001-5,000 employees

What's important to us when selecting a vendor, besides the product, the vendor needs to be of significant size to be able to continue to evolve the product. It needs to be able to provide enterprise-level support. We're a large company, so we expect the vendor to provide that backing of their product and SLAs. When we choose a product we don't want it to be a product that comes and goes. We want there to be a clear vision of where it's going, that's important to us. CA was able to demonstrate that to us.

It's very good in terms of what we wanted out of the product, initially. But now that we've explored and had the product for a while, we expect more. I think it definitely has room for improvement. Some of those things we're seeing here today, or in this week, at the CA World conference, give me some hope that that improvement is going to happen.

I would advise taking a look at what's available. Clearly, we've had good success with CA API Gateway, but this is a very quickly evolving space. I would encourage them to look at what's out there, what's available. They should prioritize what's important to them, what they're looking for out of the product. Then do a proof of concept to make sure that they feel comfortable, that the product is what they need. Also work with the technical support staff, to make sure that they're comfortable working with them too.

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it_user457872 - PeerSpot reviewer
Head of Sportsbook Delivery at Gala Coral Interactive

Break it into small chunks, so what we did was we had a very defined use case, and we could have gone to a much larger project, but the ideas was to focus on the component that we were after, what we had to go and deliver, break that down, get it working, and then that gives the business more confidence to then invest in it further, future phases, and we just broke it down to that. We were able to very quickly deliver something of value, and that then allows you to move on from there, as opposed to doing the full solution first up, and then we could have failed on the way through, the requirements could have changed, but it was better for us, and it's something I recommend that you just break it down.

I give it a nine. It's a great tool, it's a great product. It's good for us because it does specifically what I need it to do. The only area I'd say there could be some improvement is some of the documentation perhaps, some of the release notes are not the best. I think they're trying to brush things up and make it better, so it's improving all the time, but initially when we first started seeing some of the interface and some of the documentation it was quite confusing, but then we have a partner that takes the pain, I suppose, for that. Buy the tool. It's fantastic.

What are the key digital priorities and initiatives in your company?
The key things for us is on-boarding affiliates, partners, as quickly as possible, for their customers, or our customers who bet through them, to leverage those relationships, leverage those customers to allow them to bet with us. API Management for us at the minute has been around in having a clean interface for these guys to be able to quickly integrate with us, and then we can very quickly get them up and running, and it's a commercially beneficial arrange for us.

Are you considering upgrading in the future?
We're investigating options as with most industries, omni channel is the big thing now, so we're investigating how we could use this in an omni channel perspective to wire up our other parts of the business, so that's something we may consider. Part of the show, there are developer portals to making it easier for developers, third parties, to actually interact with us. The current product, the gateway product, doesn't have a portal, so effectively I have to document how to integrate, and then every time I make a change, I have to then email the document out to all of my development partners, whereas if I had the developer portal, they can then just go log in themselves, register themselves, they get their own API keys, all that stuff's taken care of, so those things are quite interesting for me and for our partners.

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it_user558081 - PeerSpot reviewer
Enterprise Solutions Architect at Logisticare

Clearly this is the solution to have, but you need to have an internal appetite for the upcoming technology. It's not a keep-the-lights-on kind of tool set that would enable you to just turn it on and let it do its own thing. You need to have an administrator who understands it. There are so many opportunities to let it help you that don't come right out-of-the-box and grab you. You need to learn how it enables some of the tips, tricks and traps. Put a good engineer on it and give them the education they need. The device does so much.

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it_user558057 - PeerSpot reviewer
Lead Software Engineer at a wellness & fitness company with 501-1,000 employees

Overall, this is a good product. Those who are interested in a similar product should try to do a PoC first and then see what you want from it.

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it_user558309 - PeerSpot reviewer
Enterprise Architect at a retailer with 1,001-5,000 employees

We came up with a reference architecture, so there's got to be some standardization in regards to how you want to build APIs, expose the APIs, naming conventions and so on.

The way to manage the policies needs to be simplified and developers need to be trained. In my opinion, CA API Gateway in that security space is very ideal and it's one of the best out there.

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it_user558432 - PeerSpot reviewer
Head of Digital at Banco Votorantim

This API management software platform is great for us. We are extremely satisfied with the platform.

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it_user479772 - PeerSpot reviewer
VP Product Development at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees

I'll definitely give it 8.5. Whether they can put up the solutions that we want, that's number 1. How long they would take, is it going to provide value addition at this point of time or in the future would we have to invest in technology dollars in order to improve that? What is the pricing? What's the scalability? What's the uptime? All those features. It's been very good.

I think CA's API Management technology is in the top 3 in the industry. It depends upon what kind of things you're looking for or what kind of features you're looking for.

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SM
CEO at Next Generation Technocom Pvt Ltd

I rate Layer7 API Management an eight out of ten.

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Stefan Zivanovic - PeerSpot reviewer
Cyber Security Consultant at CyberGate Dfenese

I rate Layer7 API Management an eight out of ten. It takes time to learn and understand the product.

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VK
Senior Consultant at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees

I would rate this solution as nine out of ten.

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AK
Layer7 API Developer at Allied Globetech

The tool is very powerful so if you are looking to go with an API platform I would recommend CA.

The number of users among our clients is growing, although I don't have an actual number I can give you. Initially, it takes time to get people to understand the platform, but once they understand it, everyone wants to use the platform and have their application exposed to this platform only.

Overall, I would rate the solution at nine out of ten. 

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it_user778611 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Lead Engineer at a tech consulting company with 10,001+ employees

Most important criteria when selecting a vendor:

  • Reliability
  • Support
  • Pricing.

CA is a large company. It is not like they are going to go upside down tomorrow. You want to make sure that the company is going to be around for awhile if you are investing in them. 

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it_user778536 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Associate at a financial services firm

What's important to us when selecting a vendor, support is the most important factor.

I would tell anyone who is researching this type of solution to go for API Management.

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it_user631233 - PeerSpot reviewer
VP Of IT Development at a tech services company with 1-10 employees

You should read the documentation.

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it_user558405 - PeerSpot reviewer
Programmer Analyst at a healthcare company with 10,001+ employees

I would certainly recommend using this product. We've had a wonderful success story. And we've not had any issues with it. Even when the consultants do come out, they are very knowledgeable. They know the product inside and out and can implement it right on site. That is a plus.

When selecting a vendor, the interoperability between their different products that we have is important, as well as expandability. Additionally, we want to be able to configure the product to our liking. That helps us adopt it.

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it_user558021 - PeerSpot reviewer
API Champion at a tech services company with 501-1,000 employees

Dig in really deep, not only from a technical standpoint but also from a design and product standpoint. That's probably the biggest piece of advice that I can give you. If you miss this, you will forget to see the forest through the trees.

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it_user558360 - PeerSpot reviewer
Head of Group Technology at a logistics company with 1,001-5,000 employees

Just do your own homework and make sure your own metrics are ready, specific to your organization. Every organization is different and make sure that you maximize the value of the investment that you are putting in.

The roadmap of the product is the most important criteria while selecting a vendor. In addition, another important factor is the ability to invest in continuous releases/new releases that are coming up in the product. In short, how much the vendor is willing to invest in the product to keep it updated.

We had a little bit of mishaps for the installation. Overall, regarding the product features all what we wanted was in there. It's just that we had our share of a little difficulty in implementation, otherwise it is a good product.

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it_user497217 - PeerSpot reviewer
Vice President of API Management Division at a tech company with 51-200 employees

API management solutions have many additional valuable features that some IT development purists might not feel “should” be handled by an API gateway. Two examples include the API gateway’s ability to process business rules on a service, and the API gateway’s ability to provide orchestration. One could certainly have a lively debate about whether the API gateway is the “right” place to do this, but the point I try to make is that in the real world, work comes at you fast; you have to be nimble and responsive to customer demands. I have been in situations where a business requirement and deadline could not be met because certain architecture was not ready or the team who would normally handle this work was already fully utilized on other requirements. Because the API gateway can handle these tasks, it provides increased flexibility. The new functionality can be added into the gateway and later moved out to a service bus or microservices architecture as time allows.

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it_user343143 - PeerSpot reviewer
VP, EIM Data Architect at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees

It takes longer than you would think; timing it is essential.

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it_user880812 - PeerSpot reviewer
Technology Analyst at Infosys Technologies Ltd

I would say implement it. If you are new to APIs and things, you won't understand it, but if you have some experience it will be okay.

I would rate this as eight of ten.

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it_user797973 - PeerSpot reviewer
VP Enterprise Solutions - Financial Services at Samsung

I would put it up in the eight to nine category out of a 10, if I had pinpoint a number.

Most important criteria when selecting a vendor: CA is extremely appealing because of the reach that they have across industries, and they are pretty deep in many industries. They bring some brand recognition to the table, and obviously Samsung has a very strong brand as well. You combine those two brands, and that just creates a compelling offering which will get the attention of companies out there. 

Obviously, the support piece is important, the product stability, and how robust that product are very important to us. We look at that on a number of different dimensions.

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AM
Business development manager at Sec4you

If you wish to implement Layer7 API Management, it is paramount that you understand, first, what you need.

Most of the time, the customer doesn't understand the power of APIs and how they should be managed inside an organization. If your customer doesn't have a plan, it doesn't matter what solution they use — nothing will work.

Overall, on a scale from one to ten, I would give this solution a rating of nine.

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BC
IT / Enterprise Architect, IT Consultant at a consultancy with 11-50 employees

On a scale from one to ten where one is the worst and ten is the best, I would rate this solution as a nine-out-of-ten. In order to rate it 10, it would need to be perfect. What I find other people saying is that the product portal for API development lacks some features. People who need that functionality are not impressed. They say it is lagging behind the competition. That is not my experience so I do not know anything about it. I have to guess they are right from their first-hand experience.  

What I do not know — but it could be a potential problem — is when you have to deploy the products in the cloud. That might be an issue. Because it is best-of-breed, you are not going through Microsoft or Amazon or Google. That means that you are not working with a solution native to those platforms. You may need to implement an infrastructure product somewhere in the hosting platform — for example, in Microsoft cloud — and I think it is kind of a challenge.  

Layer7 has published on their site that this can be done. But the cloud companies will probably do things in order to help promote the use of their own products and by that measure discourage customers from using products like Layer7. That might be a problem for the people who want to use the Layer7 API Management.  

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AM
Business development manager at Sec4you

Be sure to research this product and its functionalities well prior to moving forward with the solution. Many of my clients will have issues with the solution in regards to their use cases.

This solution is easy to deploy and view data in API but you must have a solid plan to manage the environment.

I would rate it a ten out of ten. 

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VK
Senior Technology Architect at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees

CA API suite is a strong solution with very good security capabilities and end-to-end lifecycle management of APIs. It has been proven over the years and is a very good option for implementing the API gateway for an enterprise.

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it_user882714 - PeerSpot reviewer
Experts in Integration Models at a consultancy with 5,001-10,000 employees

Begin by using the installation offered on an OVA, then in production environments make use of your own installation, e.g., in CentOS.

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it_user639678 - PeerSpot reviewer
OSS Enterprise Architect

I would say that, although the Gateway is geared up for managing SOAP services, the developer portal isn't. It's a gap for us, which means the developer portal isn't quite as good as we thought it was going to be for managing SOAP services ( which we have quite a lot of). They're not discoverable in the portal, as are RESTful services.

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it_user484275 - PeerSpot reviewer
Sr. Manager - Technology Governance and Architecture at a tech company with 10,001+ employees

The stability of the company and the customer base are the two most important aspect because we want to make sure the company is going to be around for years to come.

Also, who is there customer base at the moment. We want to make sure and learn from their experiences. We don’t want to be a guinea pig to begin with.

Rating: I would say CA is around a nine plus. I would strongly recommend them. The first think I’ll tell anyone is to do your homework because wherever you venture into a new product, there are lots of unknowns and those unknowns are what makes people feel, “Well, this is humongous. It’s too complex.” I would say to first learn the product and what the product has to offer and see how does that benefit your business needs. Then go for it, but with the product suite that we are current using, I would strongly recommend them because it did deliver what we want and we are very happy with it.

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it_user351327 - PeerSpot reviewer
Sales Engineer at a tech services company with 51-200 employees

Definitely do your research and, if possible, take the two day workshop to show you how to use the tool.

Also, get recommendations from people and get their feedback.

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SW
Automation Engineer at a computer software company with 10,001+ employees

Overall, this is a good product. It's been stable and working for us, and our main difficultly is people calling out the price point on it.

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it_user778623 - PeerSpot reviewer
Enterprise Architect at DXC Technologie

I like that CA is continuing to improve the product, looking for new solutions using the API Gateway. That's something that we're familiar with. And that they're trying to make it work for different types of architectures. As I mentioned, we are moving toward Microservice Architecture and having the Docker form and the micro API Gateway to help with those kind of architectures is really helpful.

I'm an engineer, so from my perspective things have to be simple. If things get way too complicated then maybe you don't have the right solution, or you're not using the right solution to solve the right problem. In that case you may want to look for a different solution.

When selecting a vendor, as an engineer the solution that's offered by the vendor needs to be simple enough to solve my problem in an efficient way. Of course, I don't worry too much about cost because I'm not paying for it, but certainly cost does play a part in terms of licensing scheme.

The solution you choose depends a lot on the use case, so without really understanding a colleague's use case it would be hard for me to recommend anything at all. Definitely, if they want functionality like API management, I would recommend looking at CA to see it fits their use case or not.

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it_user558363 - PeerSpot reviewer
Manager, Information Technology - Integration Technology Engineering at a financial services firm with 5,001-10,000 employees

Focus on developing a relationship with CA. They have a variety of products and they do a lot of cross selling, so it's important to develop a relationship and figure out how to manage that relationship as you go forward.

When selecting a vendor, the most important element is relationship.

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MM
General Manager at Global SEIS

I rate Layer7 API Management an eight out of ten.

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SG
student at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees

If you are truly looking for API management features, CA API Management is the best solution. It might be a bit old in terms of cloud-native architecture but they are moving towards that.

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it_user778641 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Engineer at a transportation company with 1,001-5,000 employees

When selecting a vendor the most important factors for us are 

  • cost
  • validity of the product
  • stable product

It's a very good product to use to initially set up single sign-on for web services authentication.

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it_user701361 - PeerSpot reviewer
Associate Vice President at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees

Go ahead. A very good product and a market leader in its segment.

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it_user345549 - PeerSpot reviewer
IT Mobile/Web Solution Delivery Manager at a insurance company with 5,001-10,000 employees

As part of your evaluation, make sure that the companies can set up a proof of concept to check real situations.

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SM
CEO at Next Generation Technocom Pvt Ltd

I would recommend this solution to others. This is one of the good solutions for microservices and APIs and for people who need to go the digital way. There are a lot of other solutions that are coming into the market, and the infrastructure landscape is changing.

I would rate Layer7 API Management a six out of ten.

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it_user674037 - PeerSpot reviewer
Transformation and Change Management Leader at a logistics company with 1,001-5,000 employees

Familiarise yourself with its policy management to match your requirements for API management and governance.

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it_user778770 - PeerSpot reviewer
Solution Architect

In general when we are picking vendors, the most important criterion is support. When they can really help us we feel more confident.

I give it a 10 out of 10 compared to other products. I would definitely recommend CA API Gateway.

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it_user778629 - PeerSpot reviewer
Enterprise Architect

When considering the most important criteria when selecting a vendor, of course there are all kinds of functional criteria according to the product that we are evaluating. On the other hand, it's important, of course, that the vendor is stable. And because we are a large company, it is for us important that the vendor also provide some kind of stability due to its size and its footprint internationally.

Brand name isn't a big consideration for us. On the other hand, you have different analysts' reports that are quite important for us, as we don't have time and budget, from an architecture point of view, to evaluate all existing solutions in detail. So we have to have a starting point, which of course is the analysts' ratings and then, with some products, we usually do some kind of PoC and workshops to find out if they match our requirements.

I would actually divide my rating into two parts. The CA Gateway solution I would rate at nine out of 10, based on its mature capabilities in all the areas that are relevant for us. On the Portal, I would give only four out of 10 because I actually I don't quite understand the CA market strategy in that area, and the fact that the current version doesn't provide the same capabilities that they used to have with 3.5. There are some major capabilities that we miss there and which have not been introduced in the current 4.x version schemes; we're waiting for that to happen.

I would advise you plan a thorough PoC with the top two or three contenders on the list to find out about not only the functional criteria on the paper, but also how the product works and looks and feels in real life.

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it_user635433 - PeerSpot reviewer
Architect at a tech company with 201-500 employees

Get the proper training for your staff and don’t hesitate to ask CA for help if needed. The product is extensible and CA offers custom solutions. We had some small customer development done for us (for a fee), which was productized in a later version of the product.

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it_user353421 - PeerSpot reviewer
IT Analyst at a retailer with 1,001-5,000 employees

The problem with API Management is it's solving a problem that not many people understand. If you look at the options in the market, there's not much. I would a to a it only advise to get it because it's actually very friendly in what it's trying to do in terms of UI. The learning curve is very short and it's something that you can rely on to work properly.

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it_user898710 - PeerSpot reviewer
Software Engineer at a tech vendor with 501-1,000 employees

This product is available on-premise, in the cloud, and Docker.

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AS
Practice Lead at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
  • The product is feature rich and can solve a myriad of use cases.
  • We have noticed that building frameworks on the product set, with the help of a senior architect who drives the adoption early on, is a key. They can help create reference architecture for your organization that pays dividends in the end.
  • Aim for CA certified resources or partners for a good quality solution.
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it_user352995 - PeerSpot reviewer
Expert Architect at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees

I saw some things this week at CA World which I think will make the product better, more intuitive to use with a better interface and easier deployment. There are things I saw on the road map that they'll address in the near future.

I would advice that someone go through the self-training before just jumping in. I learned from co-workers as well.

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SK
Technical Consultant at a computer software company with 501-1,000 employees

Check what is required and whether it can be achieved easily without any compromise, see how flexible its to use and maintain.

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it_user778503 - PeerSpot reviewer
Software Engineer at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees

It is better than similar Gateway products that I have used in the past. Again, that flexibility really lends itself to us, and our program, a lot. However, there are certainly some areas for continued improvement and it seems like they are going in the right direction, so hopefully that continues. 

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it_user778995 - PeerSpot reviewer
Integration Architect at a comms service provider with 10,001+ employees

Among most important criteria when selecting a vendor, the first thing is pricing. After that features, obviously, and then the performance and stability.

We would definitely recommend implementing Layer 7. The only reason you might not implement it is if you are looking at open source, but open source comes with its own issues and cons. But if the cost is not an issue, Layer 7 is the top and I would definitely recommend it to anybody.

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it_user558069 - PeerSpot reviewer
Integration Platform Manager at a comms service provider with 1,001-5,000 employees

I would say CA are a good company to work for. I would say that the Professional Services people are fairly expensive but pretty good. I would say that the Gateway is a good tool but you need to be careful of the limitations for SOAP services. Also try and get over to CA World because that's good fun.

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it_user607752 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Consultant

CA APIM is the best product in the market. With API Gateway, you can expose
APIs with an advanced authentication mechanism and security, within days.

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it_user778983 - PeerSpot reviewer
Prof IT System at a comms service provider with 10,001+ employees

The main thing we look at when selecting a vendor is what partners are using them and how successful they are in that business with the product. Then we'll look at industry ratings. Based on that we will consider if we need to go with that product or not.

I rate it a nine out of 10 because the product is not only one product, API Gateway. If I want to monitor the gateways, I need to go with other CA products. It's not like a package, it is multiple products. So if it was a complete bundle, then I would rate it better.

I would recommend going with it.

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it_user667791 - PeerSpot reviewer
Lead Infrastructure Architect with 11-50 employees

Follow CA documentation thoroughly.

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it_user502011 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Java Developer/ Solution Architect at a financial services firm with 501-1,000 employees

I would advise also evaluating Apigee API management if you are looking for an end-to-end API management solution. Otherwise, CA API Management is not a bad choice.

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it_user558333 - PeerSpot reviewer
Leads System Engineer at a consultancy with 1,001-5,000 employees

I recommend this product because of how successful we've been with it.

The most important criteria for me when selecting a vendor is the quality of their support and technical staff. If they are able to help us, it makes it a lot easier.

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RS
Consultor de segurança at a tech company with 1-10 employees

CA API Management is very helpful. I would rate the product an 8 out of 10. In my opinion, the features are all very good.

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it_user760710 - PeerSpot reviewer
Development Manager API Management - Digital Technology Services at a energy/utilities company with 10,001+ employees

Consider if the product is needed – there are cheaper, less complex solutions out there.

Consultancy costs for CA should be considered – worth the money as it saves time (and therefore cost) with configuration.

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it_user882711 - PeerSpot reviewer
Solution Architect at a construction company with 1,001-5,000 employees

You need a team to manage it.

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Buyer's Guide
Layer7 API Management
March 2024
Learn what your peers think about Layer7 API Management. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: March 2024.
765,234 professionals have used our research since 2012.