Azure API Management (APIM) is a critical Azure service used to publish, secure, monitor, and manage APIs at scale. With the growing adoption of cloud-native and microservices architectures, APIM skills are in high demand across enterprises.
Whether you’re preparing for Azure Administrator, Azure Developer, or Integration Engineer roles, this blog covers the Top 25 Azure API Management interview questions and answers, from basic to advanced, explained clearly and practically.
Azure API Management (APIM) is a fully managed Azure service that allows organizations to create, publish, secure, transform, maintain, and monitor APIs. It acts as a gateway between backend services and API consumers.
Key purposes:
Azure APIM consists of three core components:
| Component | Description |
|---|---|
| API Gateway | Routes requests, enforces policies, handles security |
| Publisher Portal | Used by API administrators to manage APIs |
| Developer Portal | Used by developers to discover and test APIs |
The API Gateway is the runtime component that:
It ensures security, performance, and reliability for APIs.
The Developer Portal is a customizable website where:
It improves developer onboarding and API adoption.
A Product is a logical container that:
Users must subscribe to a product to consume APIs.
Policies are XML-based rules that modify API behavior at runtime.
Common policy use cases:
Policies can be applied at global, product, API, or operation level.
Rate limiting controls the number of API calls a client can make within a time period.
Example:
100 calls per minute per subscription
This protects backend services from:
API Versioning allows you to maintain multiple versions of an API simultaneously.
Azure APIM supports:
This ensures backward compatibility for existing consumers.
A Subscription provides:
Clients must pass the subscription key in API requests to authenticate.
Azure API Management provides multiple security features:
These features ensure secure API access.
OAuth 2.0 is an authorization framework used to secure APIs.
In APIM:
Caching stores API responses temporarily to:
APIM supports:
API transformation allows modifying:
This is done using policies without changing backend code.
Azure APIM offers multiple tiers:
| Tier | Use Case |
|---|---|
| Developer | Non-production, testing |
| Basic | Small workloads |
| Standard | Production workloads |
| Premium | High-scale, multi-region |
| Consumption | Serverless, pay-per-use |
The Consumption tier:
Ideal for event-driven and unpredictable workloads.
Azure APIM integrates with Azure Monitor and Application Insights to:
This enables proactive performance management.
Azure APIM supports importing APIs from:
This simplifies API onboarding and documentation.
A Backend represents:
APIM routes client requests to the configured backend.
| Azure API Management | Azure Application Gateway |
|---|---|
| API-focused | Web traffic-focused |
| Policy-based management | Load balancing |
| Developer portal | No developer portal |
| API lifecycle support | Network-level routing |
Throttling limits:
It prevents backend overload and ensures fair usage among consumers.
A Self-hosted Gateway:
OpenAPI (Swagger) is a standard format for:
Azure APIM natively supports OpenAPI.
You can monitor API usage using:
This helps track performance and usage trends.
Azure APIM helps enterprises:
Azure API Management is a core integration and API governance service in Microsoft Azure. Mastering APIM concepts not only helps you crack interviews but also enables you to design secure, scalable, and enterprise-ready API platforms.
If you’re preparing for Azure APIM roles or certifications, these 25 interview questions will give you a strong conceptual and practical foundation.