Sentinet Components

Nevatech Sentinet™ consists of network-distributed components; each component can be deployed on the same or on different physical or virtual computer systems, and the computer systems can be located in the same or on different networks. From the perspective of installation and deployment, Sentinet consists of the following components:

Sentinet Core Components

1. Sentinet Nodes (Sentinet API Gateways)

   A Sentinet Node (a.k.a an API Gateway) is a network intermediary deployed as a special .NET proxy application hosted in a Microsoft IIS environment, which enables non-intrusive runtime manageability of RESTful APIs and SOAP services.

   One or more Sentinet Node(s) can be deployed on a single or multiple machine(s).

2. Repository Web Application (Sentinet Management Server)

   The Repository Web Application is an HTML5/JavaScript Web Application that includes Sentinet Management APIs. This Web Application hosts the interactive Sentinet Administrative Console and is connected to an API Repository database, an on premises or cloud Microsoft SQL Server database or the native Azure SQL database in the cloud, in which Sentinet stores its configuration along with all APIs and their associated assets, artifacts and API monitoring data.

3. Sentinet API Repository Database

   Sentinet API Repository database stores Sentinet configuration along with all registered APIs and their associated assets, artifacts and API monitoring data.

   Note

   Sentinet deployment models include an option to distribute Sentinet data between two isolated databases, API Repository Database and Monitoring Database. Two physically separated databases allow for greater management flexibility, but at the expense of the complexity of initial configuration.

Sentinet Developer Portal Components

Developer Portal components are optional. They are required only when the owner of the Sentinet product (typically API Provider) wants to offer API consumers a specialized “Developer Portal” User Experience.

1. Developer Portal Web Application

   The Developer Portal Web Application helps API Consumers (“developers”) to learn about provider APIs, documentation, samples and Swagger/OpenAPI/WSDL documents. The application provides developers with self-registration process to request subscriptions for APIs and API Products consumption with automatic generation of API Keys, monitoring and dashboard/analytical capabilities. The Developer Portal Web Application is a built on top of the open source Umbraco CMS (Content Management System) system, and is typically branded (white-labeled) by the API Provider (owner of the Sentinet product).

2. Sentinet Developer Portal CMS Database

   Developer Portal visual aspects and custom content can be fully customized by leveraging Developer Portal CMS Database integrated in the product.

Figure 1. Example of the Sentinet components that shows Sentinet Node (API Gateway), Repository Web Application with Sentinet API Repository Database, and Developer Portal Web Application with Developer Portal CMS Database.

Figure above shows Sentinet components where each of them is deployed on its own server. Sentinet components can also be deployed on the same server(s) (see Deployment Scenarios chapter in this document).

Sentinet components marked in red color designate Sentinet Core Components. Green components designate optional Developer Portal components.

Red and green dashed arrows show how Sentinet components communicate with each other. Figure above does not show the actual flow of managed API calls, because it is outside of the scope of this Installation Guide. Please refer to the Sentinet User Guide for complete diagrams and their documentation.