Deploy an API managed by Cloud Endpoints

Deploy an API managed by Cloud Endpoints

This QuickStart walks you through deploying a sample API, which Endpoints manages. The sample code includes:

• A REST API that you can query to find the name of an airport from its three-letter IATA code.
• A script that uploads the API configuration to Endpoints.
• A script that deploys an App Engine flexible environment backend to host the sample API.

After you send requests to the sample API, you can view the Endpoints activity graphs and Google Cloud Observability logs in the Google Cloud console. These tools let you monitor your APIs and gain insights into their usage.

This QuickStart uses scripts to simplify the configuration steps for you to quickly see the activity graphs and logs in action. To learn how to configure and deploy a sample API, choose a tutorial for one of the API frameworks:

• Cloud Endpoints for OpenAPI: Tutorials
• Cloud Endpoints for gRPC: Tutorials
• Cloud Endpoints Frameworks: Tutorials

Before you begin

1. Sign in to your Google Cloud account. If you're new to Google Cloud, create an account to evaluate how our products perform in real-world scenarios. New customers also get $300 in free credits to run, test, and deploy workloads.

2. In the Google Cloud console, on the project selector page, select or create a Google Cloud project.

   Note: If you don't plan to keep the resources that you create in this procedure, create a project instead of selecting an existing project. After you finish these steps, you can delete the project, removing all resources associated with the project.

   Go to project selector

3. Make sure that billing is enabled for your Google Cloud project.

4. In the Google Cloud console, on the project selector page, select or create a Google Cloud project.

   Note: If you don't plan to keep the resources that you create in this procedure, create a project instead of selecting an existing project. After you finish these steps, you can delete the project, removing all resources associated with the project.

   Go to project selector

5. Make sure that billing is enabled for your Google Cloud project.

Starting Cloud Shell

1. In the Google Cloud console, make sure you are in the project that you want to use for the sample API.

2. Open Cloud Shell.

   Open Cloud Shell

   A Cloud Shell session opens inside a new frame at the bottom of the Google Cloud console and displays a command-line prompt. It can take a few seconds for the session to initialize.

   

3. If you're using an existing project, make sure you have the latest version of all installed gcloud components:

   gcloud components update
   

Note: If you're on a Linux or MacOS machine and want to follow this quickstart using your local shell, download the Google Cloud CLI and carry out these quickstart instructions by using your local command-line interface instead of Cloud Shell.

Getting the sample code

1. In Cloud Shell, enter the following command to get the sample API and scripts:

   git clone https://github.com/GoogleCloudPlatform/endpoints-quickstart
   

2. Change to the directory that contains the sample code:

   cd endpoints-quickstart
   

Deploying the Endpoints configuration

To publish a REST API to Endpoints, an OpenAPI configuration file that describes the API is required. The sample API comes with a pre-configured OpenAPI file called openapi.yaml.

Endpoints uses Service Management, an infrastructure service of Google Cloud to create and manage APIs and services. To use Endpoints to manage an API, you deploy the API's OpenAPI configuration file to Service Management.

To deploy the Endpoints configuration:

1. In Cloud Shell, in the endpoints-quickstart directory, enter the following:

   cd scripts
   

2. Run the following script, which is included in the sample:

   ./deploy_api.sh
   

Endpoints uses the host field in the OpenAPI configuration file to identify the service. The deploy_api.sh script sets the ID of your Google Cloud project as part of the name configured in the host field. When you prepare an OpenAPI configuration file for your own service, you need to do this manually.

The script then deploys the OpenAPI configuration to Service Management by using the command: gcloud endpoints services deploy openapi.yaml

As it is creating and configuring the service, Service Management outputs information to the Google Cloud console. You can safely ignore the warnings about the paths in openapi.yaml not requiring an API key. On successful completion, you see a line similar to the following that displays the service configuration ID and the service name:

    Service Configuration [2017-02-13-r2] uploaded for service [airports-api.endpoints.example-project.cloud.goog]

Enabling required services

At a minimum, Endpoints requires the following Google services to be enabled:

Name	Title
servicecontrol.googleapis.com	Service Control API
servicemanagement.googleapis.com	Service Management API

In most cases, deploying the Endpoints configuration enables these required services.

Use the following command to confirm that the required services are enabled:

gcloud services list

If you do not see the required services listed, enable them:

gcloud services enable servicemanagement.googleapis.com
gcloud services enable servicecontrol.googleapis.com

Also enable your Endpoints service:

gcloud services enable YOUR-PROJECT-ID.appspot.com

For more information about the gcloud commands, see gcloud services.

Deploying the API backend

So far you have deployed the OpenAPI configuration to Service Management, but you haven't yet deployed the code to serve the API backend. The deploy_app.sh script included in the sample creates an App Engine flexible environment to host the API backend, and then the script deploys the API to App Engine.

To deploy the API backend:

• In Cloud Shell, in the endpoints-quickstart/scripts directory, run the following script:

  ./deploy_app.sh
  

The script runs the following command to create an App Engine flexible environment in the us-central region: gcloud app create --region="$REGION"

It takes several minutes to create the App Engine flexible environment backend. After the application is created, the output is:

Success! The app is now created.

Next, the script runs the gcloud app deploy command to deploy the sample API to App Engine.

The output is:

Deploying ../app/app_template.yaml...You are about to deploy the following services:

It takes several minutes to deploy the API to App Engine. When the API is successfully deployed to App Engine, the output is:

Deployed service [default] to [https://example-project.appspot.com]

Sending requests to the API

• In Cloud Shell, after deploying the sample API, you can send requests to it by running the following script:

  ./query_api.sh
  

The script echoes the curl command that it uses to send a request to the API, and then displays the result. The output is:

curl "https://example-project.appspot.com/airportName?iataCode=SFO"
San Francisco International Airport

The API expects one query parameter, iataCode, that is set to a valid IATA airport code such as SEA or JFK. For example:

./query_api.sh JFK

Note: App Engine may take a few minutes to respond successfully to requests. If you send a request and get an HTTP 502, 503, or some other server error, wait a minute and try the request again.

You just deployed and tested an API in Endpoints!

Note: If you want to let us know what you liked about this tutorial, feel free to provide feedback at the bottom of this page. Your feedback helps us improve these tutorials.
If you got an error, join the google-cloud-endpoints Google group and let us know what went wrong. This group receives responses from other Endpoints users and from Google engineers, who monitor the group.

Tracking API activity

With APIs deployed with Endpoints, you can monitor critical operations metrics in the Google Cloud console, and gain insight into your users and usage with Cloud Logging.

1. In Cloud Shell, run the traffic generation script to populate the graphs and logs:

   ./generate_traffic.sh
   

   Note: This script generates requests in a loop and automatically times out in 5 minutes. To end the script sooner, enter Control+C in Cloud Shell.

2. In the Google Cloud console, look at the activity graphs for your API.

   Go to the Endpoints Services page

   It might take a few moments for the requests to be reflected in the graphs. While you wait for data to be displayed:

   • If the Permissions side panel isn't open, click +Permissions. The Permissions panel lets you control who has access to your API and the level of access.

   • Click Deployment history. This tab displays a history of your API deployments, including the deployment time and who deployed the change.

   • Click Overview. You see the traffic coming in. After the traffic generation script has been running for a minute, you see three lines on the Total latency graph (50th, 95th, and 98th percentiles). This data provides an estimate of response times.

3. Scroll down to the table below the graphs, and under Links, click View Logs for GET/airportName. The Logs Explorer page displays the request logs for the API.

4. Open Cloud Shell.

   Open Cloud Shell

5. To stop the script, enter Control+C.

Adding a quota to the API

Beta

This feature is subject to the "Pre-GA Offerings Terms" in the General Service Terms section of the Service Specific Terms. Pre-GA features are available "as is" and might have limited support. For more information, see the launch stage descriptions.

Endpoints lets you set quotas that let you control the rate at which applications can call your API. You can use quotas to protect your API from excessive usage by a single client.

1. In Cloud Shell, deploy the Endpoints configuration that has a quota.

   ./deploy_api.sh ../openapi_with_ratelimit.yaml
   

   After you deploy an updated Endpoints configuration, it becomes active within a minute.

2. In the Google Cloud console, go to the Credentials page.

   Go to the Credentials page

3. Click Create credentials, and then click API key. A new API key is displayed on the screen.

4. Click Copy .

5. In Cloud Shell, type the following. Replace YOUR_API_KEY with the API key you just created.

   export API_KEY=YOUR_API_KEY
   

6. Send your API a request using the API key you just generated.

   ./query_api_with_key.sh $API_KEY
   

   The output is similar to the following:

   curl -H 'x-api-key: AIzeSyDbdQdaSdhPMdiAuddd_FALbY7JevoMzAB' "https://example-project.appspot.com/airportName?iataCode=SFO"
   San Francisco International Airport
   

7. The API now has a limit of 5 requests per minute. Run the following command to send traffic to the API and trigger the quota limit.

   ./generate_traffic_with_key.sh $API_KEY
   

8. After running the script for 5-10 seconds, enter Control+C to stop the script.

9. Send another authenticated request to the API.

   ./query_api_with_key.sh $API_KEY
   

   The output is similar to the following:

   {
    "code": 8,
    "message": "Insufficient tokens for quota 'airport_requests' and limit 'limit-on-airport-requests' of service 'example-project.appspot.com' for consumer     'api_key:AIzeSyDbdQdaSdhPMdiAuddd_FALbY7JevoMzAB'.",
    "details": [
     {
      "@type": "type.googleapis.com/google.rpc.DebugInfo",
      "stackEntries": [],
      "detail": "internal"
     }
    ]
   }
   

If you get a different response, try running the generate_traffic_with_key.sh script again and then retry.

Congratulations! You've successfully rate-limited your API. You can also set varying limits on different API methods, create multiple kinds of quotas, and keep track of which consumers use which APIs.

For more information, see About quotas.

Creating a developer portal for the API

You can use Cloud Endpoints Portal to create a developer portal, a website that you can use to interact with the sample API. To learn more, see Cloud Endpoints Portal overview.

Clean up

To avoid incurring charges to your Google Cloud account for the resources used on this page, follow these steps.

To avoid incurring charges, you can delete your Google Cloud project to stop billing for all the resources used within that project.

Caution: Deleting a project has the following effects:
• Everything in the project is deleted. If you used an existing project for the tasks in this document, when you delete it, you also delete any other work you've done in the project.
• Custom project IDs are lost. When you created this project, you might have created a custom project ID that you want to use in the future. To preserve the URLs that use the project ID, such as an appspot.com URL, delete selected resources inside the project instead of deleting the whole project.
1. In the Google Cloud console, go to the Manage resources page.

   Go to Manage resources

2. In the project list, select the project that you want to delete, and then click Delete.
3. In the dialog, type the project ID, and then click Shut down to delete the project.

What's next

• For on overview of Endpoints:

  • About Endpoints
  • Endpoints: Architectural overview

• To learn about the different API frameworks that Endpoints supports:

  • The OpenAPI Specification
  • Endpoints for gRPC APIs
  • About Endpoints Frameworks

• To learn how to configure and deploy a sample API, choose a tutorial for one of the API frameworks:

  • Endpoints for OpenAPI: Tutorials
  • Endpoints for gRPC: Tutorials
  • Endpoints Frameworks: Tutorials