What is an API Gateway?
An API stands for Application Program Interface, containing the set of tools to build applications. API Gateway is a reverse proxy that accepts all API calls, applies various services to fulfill the calls, and returns the appropriate output. In simple words, an API gateway is a server that summarizes the internal system architecture of the application.
The API gateway has responsibilities to provide the application client with API, perform request routing, provide authentication, load balancing, monitoring, composition, and protocol translation. When a client makes a request, the request transmits to the API gateway, and further, it routes to appropriate microservices.
There is a total of two different methods by which the API gateway handles the request made by the client:
- It routes the request of the client to a suitable service.
- It spreads out the request of clients to multiple services.
The best example of an API gateway is the Netflix API gateway. As you know, you can use the Netflix services on different devices such as laptops, Tablets, Smartphones, Televisions, etc. Here, the API gateway helps to provide the size that fits all API for its services.
1.Security Benefits
2.Monitoring and Analytics
3.Decreases Microservices Complexity
4.Support for Mixing Communication Protocols
5.Avoids Exposing Internal Concerns to External Clients
Summarizing the benefits of API gateway:
- It enables the clients to partition the applications into microservices.
- It enables the clients to determine the location of service problems.
- It creates the optimal API for a particular client individually.
- API gateway reduces the number of request/response calls. It takes a single request call from the client to fetch multiple services at the same time with a single round trip.
- It converts the standard public web-friendly protocol into the internal protocol.
