Compute platform for Azure API Management - Classic tiers

APPLIES TO: Consumption | Developer | Basic | Standard | Premium

As a cloud platform-as-a-service (PaaS), Azure API Management abstracts many details of the infrastructure used to host and run your service. You can create, manage, and scale most aspects of your API Management instance without needing to know about its underlying resources.

To enhance service capabilities, we're upgrading the API Management compute platform version - the Azure compute resources that host the service - for instances in several service tiers. This article gives you context about the upgrade and the major versions of API Management's compute platform: stv1 and stv2.

Most new instances created in service tiers other than the Consumption tier are hosted on the stv2 platform. However, for existing instances hosted on the stv1 platform, you have options to migrate to the stv2 platform.

What are the compute platforms for API Management?

The following table summarizes the compute platforms currently used in the Consumption, Developer, Basic, Standard, and Premium tiers of API Management. This table doesn't apply to the v2 pricing tiers.

Version Description Architecture Tiers
stv2 Single-tenant v2 Azure-allocated compute infrastructure that supports added resiliency and security features. See What are the benefits of the stv2 platform? in this article. Developer, Basic, Standard, Premium1
stv1 Single-tenant v1 Azure-allocated compute infrastructure Developer, Basic, Standard, Premium
mtv1 Multi-tenant v1 Shared infrastructure that supports native autoscaling and scaling down to zero in times of no traffic Consumption

1 Newly created instances in these tiers and some existing instances in Developer and Premium tiers configured with virtual networks or availability zones.

Note

In Qatar Central, only the stv2 platform is supported for API Management services deployed in this region.

How do I know which platform hosts my API Management instance?

Starting with API version 2021-04-01-preview, the API Management instance exposes a read-only platformVersion property with this platform information.

You can find the platform version of your instance using the portal, the API Management REST API, or other Azure tools.

To find the platform version in the portal:

  1. Sign in to the portal and go to your API Management instance.

  2. On the Overview page, under Essentials, the Platform Version is displayed.

    Screenshot of the API Management platform version in the portal.

What are the benefits of the stv2 platform?

The stv2 platform infrastructure supports several resiliency and security features of API Management that aren't available on the stv1 platform, including:

How do I migrate to the stv2 platform?

Important

Support for API Management instances hosted on the stv1 platform will be retired by 31 August 2024. To ensure proper operation of your API Management instance, you should migrate any instance hosted on the stv1 platform to stv2 before that date.

Migration steps depend on features enabled in your API Management instance. If the instance isn't injected in a VNet, you can use a migration API. For instances that are VNet-injected, follow manual steps. For details, see the migration guide.

What about the v2 pricing tiers?

The v2 pricing tiers are a new set of tiers for API Management. Hosted on a new, highly scalable and available Azure infrastructure that's different from the stv1 and stv2 compute platforms, the v2 tiers aren't affected by the retirement of the stv1 platform.

The v2 tiers are designed to make API Management accessible to a broader set of customers and offer flexible options for a wider variety of scenarios. For more information, see v2 tiers overview.

Next steps