API Gateway

API Gateway is a fully managed service that allows us to create, publish, monitor, and maintain APIs. Essentially, API Gateway acts as a bridge, enabling seamless interactions between various services, applications, or microservices.

An API acts as the front door for our backend application services. Traditionally, developers would write code to route requests with the backend. However, integrating a managed service such as an API gateway to route requests to the backend can spare the developer from writing code. With an API gateway, we can put multiple backends behind a single domain that work together as a complete agile enterprise application.

Support for various protocols

API Gateway supports various API protocols such as HTTP APIs, REST APIs, Web Socket APIs, Mock APIs, GraphQL APIs, and SOAP APIs.

• REST APIs: A widely used, straightforward service integration pattern commonly employed for one-way communication between clients and servers. It is helpful when providing access to resources inside a Virtual Private Cloud (VPC), providing a secure and isolated environment for communication.

• HTTP APIs: It is a variation of REST API, characterized by its lightweight nature, offering streamlined functionality at a lower cost. It primarily supports HTTP proxy integration, where requests are forwarded directly to a backend HTTP endpoint without any intermediate processing or transformation.

• WebSockets: It supports bidirectional communication which is helpful in chat applications or systems displaying asynchronous notifications.

Understanding these variations allows users to choose the API type that best aligns with their specific use cases and requirements.

API Gateway features

API Gateway offers a range of features to facilitate API development, deployment, and management. This is just a theoretical overview; we’ll discuss them in detail in the lessons ahead.

Service