Development and implementation of a system for publication and management of PJSC Aeroflot’s external services based on IBM API Connect solution

Improvement of the efficiency of data exchange processes by reducing unproductive and redundant operations, optimizing information interaction between participants of PJSC Aeroflot’s processes and solving integration problems in automatic mode.

The project was implemented by developing and implementing the Automated API Connect system based on IBM API CONNECT ENTERPRISE along with specialized IBM DataPower software and hardware system, which is part of the solution.

This end-to-end solution made it possible to manage all four aspects of API lifecycle for local and cloud environments: creation, execution, management, and security. This made the project more cost-effective than partial solutions that only focus on some stages of the life cycle and can be more expensive in total for an organization if used as a set of components.

The IBM API Connect information system is designed to establish a single entry point for all external services and Aeroflot’s applications, control access to services from one location, promptly disconnect a specific external application from service in the event it is compromised or a contract is violated, and ensure the primary validation of requests from external systems to Aeroflot’s services in order to restrict incorrect requests at the input stage and thereby reduce the load on Aeroflot’s services, and provide the possibility of request transformation.

The development and implementation of IBM API Connect provided PJSC Aeroflot with the following functionality:
— Provision of information on requests;
— Handling information requests (merging, splitting, etc.);
— Creation and loading of processing rules;
— Ensuring the match between requests and replies based on the session ID;
— Distribution of access rights to the interfaces of information systems;
— Customer API lifecycle management;
— Registration of developed applications for customers;
— Publication of the interface of the online booking system services;
— Implementation of the logging of requests/replies for the interface using the Customer’s transport system based on IBM MQ;
— Publication of APIs of the Operational Data Warehouse System, authorization system, payment solution, and other services;
— Use of distributed access to interfaces;
— Management of developer’s portals;
— Development of interfaces and microservices (Node.js, Java);
— Connecting the developed microservices to Customer’s data sources and Customer’s API control and protection subsystem.