Running Azure API Management Developer tier on Production environment

Question

I need to deploy Azure API Management at work and we also need VNET support as some of our on-cloud apps need to call on-premise API and vice versa. (My company has ExpressRoute so we can use VNET peering)

Reading through APIM price list is painful, APIM Premium tier which has VNET support costs a whopping 2800 USD per month in my region. I know there have been years of complaining and Microsoft didn't do anything.

Hence the question: Is anyone running APIM Developer tier on Production? Dev tier has all the nice features but does not offer SLA. Can I assume that Dev and Premium tiers are running on the same backend? If APIM Dev tier goes down, is Premium tier likely to go down as well and the difference would be that I will receive compensation credits for Premium tier? TBH, I don't want the credits if Dev and Premium tiers will go down together anyway.

Even I don't need VNET support, the Consumption tier which is highly affordable does not offer Developer Portal!! The Basic tier is already a bit pricey. I'm rolling my eyes here, why does Microsoft have to limit those great features??

Bonus question: if anyone can guide me a workaround how to integrate VNET for Consumption/Basic tier, that would be highly appreciated.

Thanks.

Answer 1

There is no magic answer here. What you’ve conveyed is accurate. You have to pony up for the top tier enterprise features.

Fwiw I did have a client run dev sku as prod. Once in a while it would go down without and notice and be brought up some time later (hours in one instance). No notification and no explanation, only discovered it was due to dev sku after RCA through a ticket. With prod skus they keep the instance alive as they do other high SLA offerings in Azure.