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API gateway

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What is an API gateway?

An API gateway is an API management solution that sits between the frontend of an application and a bunch of backend services.

It acts as a reverse proxy that receives and collects all application programming interface (API) calls and returns the appropriate response. The process includes request routing, API composition, and protocol translation.

The API gateway is key to a microservices architecture, capable of implementing user authentication, SSL termination, rate limiting, load balancing, and more.

What is API gateway in AWS?

Amazon API Gateway, a feature within Amazon Web Services (AWS), empowers developers to link non-AWS applications with AWS backend resources, including servers and code. This gateway expands the reach of compatible applications for AWS customers and enhances the overall usefulness of Amazon's additional cloud services.

Why do we need an API gateway?

In its simplest form, an API service receives a remote request and sends back a response. However, in real life there are multiple challenges that make this process complicated. For example:

Different clients require different data. For instance, the desktop version of a product page is typically more elaborate than the mobile version.
If you’ve adopted a microservices architecture, a single request usually requires calls to dozens of applications that work independently.
Over time you need to change your service partitioning, adding new APIs, and removing others.
You may need to add analytics and monitoring tools to track the performance of your APIs.

An API gateway helps remove all this complexity as it acts as the single entry point for all clients. Once the customer request is received, the API gateway breaks it into multiple requests, proxies/routes them to the appropriate service or multiple services, generates a response, and keeps track of everything.

What are the benefits of using an API gateway?

The API gateway manages to create a different API for each user, intercepting all incoming requests and routing them via the API management system. The benefits of using an API gateway include:

Delivering the optimal API to each client
Improving the user experience by reducing the number of requests
Maximizing flexibility, allowing developers to use multiple ways to create the internal structure of an application
Enabling real-time communication between frontend and backend of an app
Increasing security by creating a barrier in front of an app’s backend that prevents the endpoints from being exposed.

An API gateway also makes response time faster as it reduces roundtrips by sending each request directly to the right service. Check out our ebook, “The A to Z of microservices architecture” to learn how having an API gateway avails enterprises.

The A to Z of microservices architecture

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