Exporting and Importing Assets and Configurations

API Gateway supports the import and export of the assets that you create or configure in API Gateway. You can import archives of APIs, global policies, and other related assets that you have exported and re-create them in API Gateway. This enables you to easily export and archive the assets; and when required, import them to a different instance of API Gateway or redeploy them on the same instance.

Overview

Each artifact in an archive is associated with a universally unique identifier (UUID) that is unique across all API Gateway installations. When importing an archive, the UUID helps in determining whether the corresponding artifact is already available in API Gateway. You can configure whether you want to overwrite the existing artifact or keep the available artifact during the import process.

Note:

The APIs, applications, policies, and aliases you import become visible in API Gateway immediately.
Active APIs are replaced during import with the updated API and the API level policies.
The updated APIs and updated API level policies do not become effective for ongoing requests.
Active APIs are replaced during deployment with zero downtime without breaking ongoing requests.
Imported applications become effective immediately, even the ongoing requests are affected.
Imported aliases and global policies do not affect ongoing requests.
You can not define multiple aliases with the same name in API Gateway as overwriting of aliases based on their names during import is not supported. Aliases, like other assets, are identified based on their UUID. Hence, if you want to overwrite an alias by importing, then ensure that the alias being imported has the same UUID as the one in the target instance.Do not attempt to modify and import an archive file because import of modified archive files is not supported.

Note: Do not attempt to modify and import an archive file because import of modified archive files is not supported.You can export archives from an earlier version to a later version of API Gateway. However, you can not import from a later version to an earlier version. For example, you can not import an 10.5 asset into a 10.3 API Gateway.

You can also export and import assets using the API Gateway REST APIs. For more information, see API Gateway Archive.

When you export an asset, the dependent assets are also exported. If any of the exported assets contain secure strings, the user credential information (passwords) associated with the assets is also exported. When you import this exported asset, API Gateway enforces conditions to check the order of import and the dependency evaluation between assets, and the dependent assets along with the user credential data are imported. For example, if you import an API, API Gateway checks and ensures that all associated policies and aliases are imported along with any passwords, if present, before importing the API.

The Overwrite option available for all the assets allows you to decide whether the asset should be imported if an existing version of the asset already exists in the target instance. In scenarios where you select to overwrite the asset in the target instance, API Gateway also checks for any associated passwords and applies the overwrite accordingly. There is no separate overwrite option for the passwords during import. The password uses the overwrite option of the asset it is associated with. For example, if you are importing an alias with a password, the overwrite option provided for the alias is applied for the password as well. If set to true, the password is overwritten if it is already exists in the system.

Functional Privileges

The Export or Import assets and Purge and Archive events category on the Access profile details page has the available import and export privileges. You must assign the following functional privileges for the required permissions:

Import assets: To import assets previously exported assets from a local system.
Export assets: To export assets and save them on a local system.

Accessing the Export and Import commands in the API Gateway user interface

The export command is either a button with the label Export, or the icon. You can export multiple items within lists, such as APIs in the API page, by using the export command in the list menu.

You can import assets using the user menu () > Import command.

Assets that can be exported and imported

Path to Page/Tab	Assets that can be exported and imported
APIs	APIs
Policies > Threat protection	Global denial of service
	Denial of service by IP
	Rules
	Mobile device and apps
	Alert settings
Policies > Global policies	Global policies
Policies > Policy templates	Policy templates
Applications	Applications
Packages > Packages	Packages
Packages > Plans	Plans
User menu () > Administration > General	Extended settings API fault Approval configuration URL Aliases Custom content-types Callback processor settings
User menu () > Administration > Security	Keystore/Truststore SAML issuer Custom assertions Kerberos JWT/OAuth/OpenID Providers
User menu () > Administration > Destinations	API Gateway API Portal (only the Event configurations are exported) Elasticsearch (properties on both tabs—Elasticsearch communication and Events—are exported) Email (properties on both tabs—Email configuration and Templates—are exported)
User menu () > Administration > Service registries	Service registry
User menu () > Administration > Aliases	Aliases

For more information about how to export APIs and global policies, see the following:

Dependencies

Some API Gateway assets use other assets. For example, APIs uses policies, aliases, and other assets. As the configuration of an asset is incomplete without the assets it uses, the export features includes the assets that are used by the asset that you export.

The following table shows the asset dependencies of each type of asset:

Asset	Dependencies (Required)	Dependencies (Optional)
APIs	Policies, Aliases	Applications, Application registrations
Applications	APIs, Application registrations	—
Packages	APIs, Plans, Policies, Subscriptions	—
Plans	Policies	—
Subscriptions	Packages, Plans	Applications
Teams	—	Group
Approval configurations	Access profiles	—
Configuration > Keystore	Keystore, Truststore	—
Email destination	—	Trust store
Service Registry	Keystore, Truststore	—
Custom destinations	Keystore, Truststore, Aliases	—

Importing Asset and Configuration Archives

For information about the import/export process, see Overview.

To import the exported files

Expand the menu options icon , in the title bar, and select Import.

Provide the following information:

Parameter	Description
Select archive file	Click Browse to select a file or ZIP format file.
Overwrite	Select an overwrite option: None: If you do not want to overwrite matching objects that exist on the server. Import will fail for the object in the archive if a matching object/asset already exists on the server. All: If you want to overwrite any matching asset that exists on the server. If a match is not found, then a new asset is created. Custom: If you want to select the specific types of assets that will be overwritten on the server if a match is found. If a matching asset exists on the server for an asset type that is not selected in the Custom overwrite list, the import operation will fail. Note: If a duplicate asset is found for any asset type that is not selected in the Custom overwrite list, the import will fail Note: Some types of assets have dependencies on other asset types. For example, APIs have a dependency on policies, aliases, and applications. Some of the dependencies are required, while others are optional. The required dependencies are always included in the archive when you export the asset. You should consider your requirements and select the assets that need to be overwritten in the Custom list. For more information, see Overview.
API version history	Select this option Fix missing versions to fix the API version history. On selecting this option, the APi versions are newly linked according to the system version of the APIs.

Note: API Gateway supports backward compatibility for API Gateway 10.1 version or higher when importing the archives of APIs. In addition, the compatibility of archives across API Gateway fix levels is also maintained. For example, you can import the archives created from lower fix levels of API Gateway into higher fix levels.
The import of an archive created from a higher fix level of API Gateway into a lower fix level can be rejected if the higher fix level’s configurations are not supported by the lower fix level.

Click Import.
The Import report displays the following information:

Parameter	Description
Type	The asset type.
Successful	The number of successful imports for each artifact type.
Unsuccessful	The number of unsuccessful imports for each artifact type.
Replaced	The number of instances replaced for each artifact type.
Warning	The number of warnings displayed during the import of each artifact type. API Gateway displays warning messages when the import is successful but some additional information is required.

Click Download the detail report here > to download the detail report.
The detail report displays the following information about the imported artifact:

Parameter	Description
Name	The name of the artifact imported.
Type	The artifact type.
Status	The status of the imported artifact. The available values are: Success Replaced Warning Failure
Explanation	The reason if the import fails or if a warning occurs.