Quick Note — Recommend a Solution for API Integration
AZ-305 › Unit 4: Design infrastructure solutions › Design an application architecture › Recommend a solution for API integration
Quick Note — Recommend a Solution for API Integration
A SaaS provider opens its first partner programme. Within six weeks, 14 partners are calling the same internal HTTP endpoints that the product UI uses. Some partners forget to send headers; some hammer the endpoints during their batch windows; one prototype script accidentally leaks an API key into a public GitHub repo. The architect's response is one decision: put Azure API Management in front, define a partner subscription model with throttling and JWT validation, and rotate every leaked key in minutes. Three months later the partner programme has 80 tenants and the team has not had a single key-leak incident or partner-DOS event.…
Retrieval target
- Recommend a Solution for API Integration
- Closed-book recall
- 5 minutes
- Open the full lesson after a miss
Decision anchors
| Prompt | Compact answer |
|---|---|
Azure API Management (APIM) | A managed API gateway that sits in front of one or more backends. Provides a unified façade (single base URL, custom domain), applies policies at request / response time (auth, throttling, transformation, caching), and exposes a developer portal for API consumers to discover and subscribe. Front-door for any HTTP / SOAP / GraphQL / WebSocket API on Azure. |
| APIM tiers at a glance | Consumption — serverless, pay-per-call, 99.95% SLA, no VNet (Premium-only). Best for low-volume / dev. Developer — non-prod single-instance, no SLA. Basic / Standard — multi-tenant prod tiers, fixed monthly cost. Premium — multi-region, VNet integration (internal or external), unlimited custom domains, self-hosted gateway, 99.99% SLA. Prod default for VNet / multi-region.… |
APIM Policy | A XML-based rule chain applied to a request and / or response — runs at the gateway, not in the backend. Scopes: All-APIs, Product, API, Operation. Built-in policies cover auth (validate-jwt), rate-limit / quota, header / URL rewriting, caching, mocking, request validation, response shaping. Same policy DSL across all tiers. |
Product + Subscription (APIM) | Product — a curated bundle of APIs (e.g., 'Starter', 'Pro', 'Enterprise') exposed to consumers in the developer portal. You attach policies (rate-limit, quota) per product. Subscription — a consumer's keyed access to a product. Subscribers get a subscription key they pass in Ocp-Apim-Subscription-Key header. Lets you monetise + rate-limit per consumer. |
Read the answers once, then cover the right-hand column and reconstruct each one from the prompt. A useful answer names the requirement, the recommended control or service boundary, and the nearest alternative it rejects. If you can only recognize the answer after seeing it, retrieval is not yet secure.
Ninety-second explanation
Without notes, explain:
- What requirement signals this learning objective rather than a neighbouring one?
- Which two solution families are most likely to be compared?
- Which hard constraint eliminates the strongest distractor?
- What identity, network, data, or failure boundary must appear in the design?
- Which operational test would prove the recommendation works?
Then compare your explanation with the full lesson. Record the missing decision rule—not merely the missed product name—in your error log.
When to open the full lesson
Open the curriculum-linked lesson when you cannot explain a comparison, when a scenario depends on a numeric limit or SKU feature, or when the service is on a retirement path. Use current Microsoft Learn documentation for availability, limits, pricing, naming, and migration milestones; the quick note is intentionally compact.
Source and freshness
Derived from the linked AZ-305 lesson and retrieval deck, grounded in both attached course sources. Reviewed 2026-08-02. Current Microsoft documentation controls changing product contracts.