API Gateway Connectors for Layer7, webMethods, Akana, Mashery, and OAG

Overview

This document details the platform's connectors for several legacy API gateways: CA/Broadcom Layer7, Software AG/IBM webMethods, Perforce Akana, TIBCO Mashery, and Oracle API Gateway (OAG). These connectors provide read-only discovery of published services and ingest transaction logs for traffic analysis.

All connectors described here, available since v1.0, are based on the pattern established for the IBM DataPower connector. They combine two primary functions:

1. Discovery: Periodically querying the gateway's management API to enumerate published services and their endpoints.
2. Traffic Ingest: Consuming a feed of transaction logs or analytics events, which are then normalized into a canonical format for platform-wide use.

These integrations provide interoperability with the specified API gateway products. The capabilities described reflect what is implemented in the platform's connectors.

Summary of Connectors

Connector	Discovery	Traffic Ingest
CA / Broadcom Layer7	Restman REST management API	Transaction log feed (syslog TXN or JSON audit)
Software AG / IBM webMethods	Mediator + API Gateway REST APIs	Transaction events (JSON over HTTP destination, or syslog)
Perforce Akana	Akana Platform API	Transaction analytics (JSON webhook, or syslog)
TIBCO Mashery	Mashery REST management API	Transaction analytics (real-time event webhook)
Oracle API Gateway (OAG)	Management REST interface	Log export (syslog/access-log text or JSON log target)

How it Works

Each gateway connector operates by discovering API definitions and ingesting transaction data. This data is then standardized and stored for analysis.

Discovery and Ingest Mechanism

The integration process consists of two distinct parts:

• Discovery: The connector uses the gateway's native management API (typically REST-based) to enumerate all published services and their corresponding endpoints. This provides the platform with a catalog of the APIs managed by the gateway.
• Traffic Ingest: The connector receives transaction data from the gateway. The transport mechanism varies by vendor and may include syslog feeds, JSON-formatted audit records, or real-time webhooks delivering JSON events.

Data Normalization and Storage

All five connectors normalize the raw transaction records from their respective gateways into a canonical data structure. This standardized record includes the following fields:

• front-end URI
• back-end URI
• service name
• client IP
• gateway IP
• HTTP method
• HTTP status
• latency
• Optional payloads and headers, if provided by the gateway's log output.

Once normalized, these records are stored in a unified traffic-log table. Each record is tagged with a gateway_type to identify its source:

• layer7
• webmethods
• akana
• tibco_mashery
• oracle-oag

This unified data feeds the platform's aggregation tables, observability dashboards, and learned example generation surfaces. The connector is designed to recognize and discard non-transactional events, such as policy changes or system alerts that lack service, method, or status information.

Connector-Specific Details

CA / Broadcom Layer7

• Discovery: The connector uses the Gateway Management API (Restman) to enumerate published services and their endpoints.
• Ingest: The connector supports two log formats from the gateway's log sink:
  • A legacy syslog TXN transaction-log line.
  • A JSON audit record, available in Layer7 v10+ via the REST log sink or audit-log forwarder. Each format provides fields such as request ID, service name, client IP, method, URI, status, and latency.

Software AG / IBM webMethods

• Discovery: The connector queries the Mediator and API Gateway REST APIs to enumerate published APIs and their endpoints.
• Ingest: The connector ingests transaction events, which can be emitted in two ways:
  • As a JSON transaction record sent to an HTTP destination.
  • As JSON-in-syslog or key-value syslog from an alternate logging profile. The events include fields such as transaction ID, API name, client IP, method, request URI, response code, and total time.

Perforce Akana

• Discovery: The connector uses the Akana Platform API to enumerate APIs and their endpoints.
• Ingest: The connector primarily ingests transaction analytics streamed as a JSON event over an HTTP webhook destination. A syslog key-value format is also supported. The event data includes message ID, API name, operation, client IP, request verb/path, response code, and duration.

TIBCO Mashery

• Discovery: The connector uses the Mashery REST management API to enumerate services and endpoints.
• Ingest: The connector ingests transaction analytics via a real-time event webhook that sends JSON data. This requires the "Real-Time Event Notification" feature to be enabled in Mashery. The events include transaction UUID, service/endpoint names, request path, method, status code, total time, and client IP.
  • Note: The primary ingest method is the analytics event webhook. Syslog ingest is not the intended path and is supported on a best-effort basis only.

Oracle API Gateway (OAG)

• Discovery: The connector uses the OAG management REST interface to enumerate configured services and endpoints.
• Ingest: The connector ingests traffic data from OAG's Open Traffic Event Log. It supports two formats:
  • A text-based syslog or access-log format (TXN-style lines), compatible with all OAG and Vordel versions.
  • A JSON HTTP log target, available in OAG 11g+ / 12c. The logs provide fields such as request ID, service name, client IP, HTTP method, request URI, status, and duration.

Operational Considerations

Body Capture

These connectors are designed to capture transaction-level metadata, which is sufficient for service discovery, dashboards, and SLO reporting. The capture of request and response bodies is not guaranteed and depends entirely on whether the specific API gateway exposes this data in its logging or event-streaming interface.

Log Format Variability

For certain gateways, the log field names and JSON schema can be configured by the gateway operator and may vary across product versions. This is particularly true for:

• CA / Broadcom Layer7 (across firmware lines)
• Perforce Akana
• Oracle API Gateway (across its Vordel, 11g, and 12c lineage)

The connector is designed to accept a wide set of field name aliases. The exact field mapping is typically confirmed during the initial onboarding for an environment using one of these gateways.

Scope

The connectors target current and recent releases of the specified API gateways over HTTP/HTTPS.

Modern, REST-native API management platforms are addressed by the generic-HTTP receiver.

See Also

• Connectors Overview
• IBM DataPower Connector
• Traffic-Driven Discovery

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