APInf release 0.60.0 brings next level UI
When I started writing this, the iconic “wind of change” by the Scorpions started playing in my head. The change 0.60.0 is bringing is not as revolutionary as the fall of the Berlin Wall, but maybe that reflects how I perceive this release.
What changes most notably is the UI look and user flow. We have streamlined many operations with the aim of making things simpler for the end-user. Here is an example. When the old UI looked like this:
The new one looks like this:
Here is a video where I preview the 0.60.0 release UI changes:
It’s not all show and no go. There are changes under the bonnet too, most notably version bump for Meteor into version 1.8. We have also used an external security consultant so we could find security vulnerabilities and fix them before someone else finds them. And we have updated the npm packages to the “latest”, with few exceptions.
One of the features we have been working on lately is the integration with other FIWARE components. For example, in one customer deployment we are using Context Broker, Quantum Leap and other Fiware components. To reflect this trend, we are introducing an beta level Tenant manager. For those who are not in the know, “tenant” is a Context Broker concept. It is basically a logical data separation. Context Broker on it’s own does not care who tries to access the data; it will give it to anyone willingly. In some cases that is a good thing, but when you try to protect the access, this will not do.
To counter this, we have created a protection mechanism using keyrock and OAuth tokens. When Tenant is created, a Tenant Manager component will create an organisation in Keyrock and leverage that mechanism to provide access control.
Tying the accounts to Keyrock allows us to do some other interesting stuff, like create Market place offering. Here is a demo of it I did in Tampere in May. It’s in Finnish & 20+ minutess, but there is some interesting discussion towards the end.
In the presentation I am talking about the Tampere FIWARE sandbox, what components it has and how it all plays together. There has been a small but active ecosystem growing in Tampere around stakeholders that invest time and money into FIWARE.
Making API management play nicely with other FIWARE components opens us all new horizons. But I’ll write more about that later.
There are still a few steps and turns that we need to make before we reach 1.0. But it’s closer. I wonder what song the approach of release 1.0 triggers in my brain.
I think we will call this release “Illya”.
The writer is a product owner for APInf. APInf helps organizations to participate in API Economy, and we help APIs and Application developers with our API Management platform.
