Zscaler Platform Automation: Introducing OneAPI

Zscaler was founded in 2007 as a true cloud-native zero trust platform, and every Zscaler service is built and delivered with an API first approach. For the longest time, Zscaler deployment, configuration and maintenance efforts relied on the experience of a human administrator interacting with the Zscaler portal, served over a web browser via APIs. 

Over the years, we’ve witnessed a trend away from a human user interacting with the system via a web portal, to automation. In the era of AI being used to write code to perform regular job duties, automation has already effectively become the new administrator. Reflecting this trend we’ve introduced our own automation service, specifically designed with automation and automation engineers in mind. We’re calling it Zscaler OneAPI.

Zscaler OneAPI is a single programming interface for the entire Zscaler platform. The three key pillars of the architecture are:

1. A common API endpoint (api.zsapi.net) that will encompass all Zscaler resources
2. Secure API Authorization with OAuth 2.0
3. API clients becoming first class citizens of Zscaler’s identity service (ZIdentity)

With Zscaler OneAPI, your automation utilizes API clients registered in ZIdentity to access any Zscaler product or component (resources) over a common endpoint: api.zsapi.net. Automation engineers will no longer have to worry about the intricate workings of product provisioning, policy structure, tenant configurations, and so on. When you want to automate policies to disable access to risky internet destinations, program against api.zsapi.net. When you want to automate private application segment creation, program against api.zsapi.net. This straightforward, easy approach accelerates your adoption, deployment, and maintenance of Zscaler solutions. 

Now, with API client identity registration and management combined in ZIdentity, authentication and authorization follows OAuth 2.0 standards. It enables security teams to hold automation accountable at the same level as a human administrator. Every API call is logged against the identity of the API client, tracked to completion, the trace is auditable, and behavioral restrictions can also be enforced, just like human users.

As an added bonus for existing customers, Zscaler OneAPI is also expanding the range of APIs beyond what has been available up to this point, so that more functions can be automated. Going forward, OneAPI will have new functions added every month as new product features are rolled-out, and functional parity with manual configuration is achieved, making this the best way to harness the full power of Zscaler solutions with the minimum of human effort.

Zscaler Platform Automation empowers organizations to rapidly and effectively adopt a Zero Trust architecture, while enabling the security team to focus human efforts on high value work. It enables organizations to improve their security posture, streamline processes, and improve overall ROI by automating mundane security tasks, reducing human error, responding to threats faster, and achieving better visibility and control over their environments.

If you would like to harness the power of the largest security cloud on the planet with automation, start here.