Entity relationships and governance model

ApiShare operates within a structured governance framework that ensures clarity in the relationships between APIs, API Products, API Assets, Applications, Organizations, and Groups. These entities interact within a well-defined governance model that supports multi-tenancy, access control, and lifecycle management.

API products & API assets

ApiShare differentiates API between Products and Assets to provide flexibility in API governance:

• API Products: Business-level APIs that are externally consumable and designed for application integration.

• API Assets: Technical backend services that power API Products but are not directly exposed to external consumers.

API Products are often linked to one or more API Assets, which handle the actual execution of API requests.

Applications

Applications in ApiShare act as consumers or providers of APIs:

• Consumer Applications: Subscribe to API Products to access their services.

• Provider Applications: Expose APIs and manage API publishing within the platform.

Applications ensure governance rules are enforced while maintaining a structured subscription model.

Diagrams explenation relationship beetween API Products, API assets and applications

Simple scenario

One asset, many products

Application consuming a Product and an asset from the same provider application

Organizations and groups

Organizations and Groups define how users interact with APIs and applications:

• Organizations: Represent business units or external partners that manage APIs.

• Groups: Allow for granular access control within an organization by assigning specific roles and permissions to users.

Entity relationships between APIs, products, and applications

ApiShare maintains structured entity relationships that define API governance:

These structured relationships ensure governance policies are enforced across all entities within ApiShare.