Cross-Domain AI API Access Control with Named Values

Question

Pulumi · Accepted Answer

To manage cross-domain AI API access control with named values, you'll typically want to use a combination of API management and access policies that can be configured in various cloud providers.

In our scenario, let's consider you are using Microsoft Azure and you want to leverage Azure API Management (APIM) to control access to your AI APIs. Azure APIM is a platform for creating consistent and modern API gateways for existing back-end services. Named values in Azure APIM are a way to abstract a string that can be used as a constant or as a parameter. They are especially useful for managing secrets and frequently changing values without having to update the policy where they are consumed.

Here is a Pulumi Python program that demonstrates how to define Named Values in Azure API Management to control access to your AI APIs:

```python
import pulumi
import pulumi_azure as azure

# Initialize Azure API Management service
api_management = azure.apimanagement.Service("api-management-service",
    resource_group_name="your-rg-name",
    publisher_name="your-publisher-name",
    publisher_email="your-publisher-email",
    sku_name="Consumption_0")

# Define a Named Value for Cross-Domain API Access Control
# Note that the secret parameter should be `True` for sensitive data.
# The value can be a secret reference to Key Vault if it's already stored there.
cross_domain_access_control = azure.apimanagement.NamedValue("cross-domain-access-control",
    api_management_name=api_management.name,
    resource_group_name="your-rg-name",
    display_name="CrossDomainAccessControl",
    value="your-secret-value-or-reference",
    secret=True, # Set to True if the value should be stored and handled as a secret.
    tags=["ai","api","access-control"])

pulumi.export('named_value_id', cross_domain_access_control.id)
```

This program sets up the following:

1. Initializes an Azure API Management service instance within a specified resource group.
2. Creates a Named Value called `CrossDomainAccessControl` which holds a value `your-secret-value-or-reference` that can be used within API Management policies for access control purposes. The value is marked as a secret to ensure it's encrypted and stored securely.
3. Exports the resource ID for the Named Value, which you could use to reference it in your API Management policies.

### Explanation of Resources:

- **azure.apimanagement.Service**: Represents the API Management service resource in Azure, which is necessary for managing our AI APIs. We define basic configuration, including the name of the service, the resource group it belongs to, and publisher information.
- **azure.apimanagement.NamedValue**: Defines a named value, which is a key/value pair that you can use across many APIs for various settings including access control. The named value is associated with the API Management instance and is tagged for easier management and identification.

### Why Named Values?

Named Values in Azure API Management help to abstract the access keys or constants that you may use in multiple policies. For example, if you are using the same access control key across several API operations, using named values allows you to update the key in one place, and all linked operations will automatically use the updated value.

### Security:

For sensitive data like API keys or access control details, it's essential to set the `secret` parameter to `True`. This makes sure that the value is encrypted at rest. If you are using Azure Key Vault (a highly recommended service for managing secrets), you can reference the secret directly by using the `valueFromKeyVault` property.

### Next Steps:

After defining the Named Value, you should integrate it with your API policies. You can reference the Named Value in your inbound, outbound, backend, or on-error policies to apply specific logic such as setting a header with an API key before forwarding the request to the backend service.

By using Azure API Management and Pulumi, you can manage and automate the creation of secure and scalable access control for AI APIs in a cloud-native way.