Should I use an API Gateway for my Application?

Without a doubt, APIs have become the de factor in application design. In fact, developers and architects spend a significant amount of time designing an API tier. The ease of use and flexibility that allows independent protocols to communicate among themselves has led to these gateways’ widespread use.

You can describe API gateways in many ways, the most common being a reserve proxy, an interface, or a single entry point. Whichever term you prefer to use, the idea is basically the same. By definition, an API gateway refers to a layer that’s between your server and those of your clients. When clients want to send a request to your server, the request first hits your API gateway, before it’s sent to the appropriate server. This eliminates the headache of clients figuring out which message needs to go to which server.

A microservice architecture has an application that’s divided into a few services, each with a special function. Although these microservices make it easy to develop, deploy, and maintain applications, they make it awfully hard for clients to quickly and securely send information to the servers. An API gateway serves as a central interface because it makes it easy for clients to solve problems because they receive all the info and recruit the right microservice your client needs.

That’s not all. API security is also a vital benefit you get when you use API gateways. You see, these gateways sit between the frontend application and microservices, and thus act as security barriers by making sure sensitive endpoints are safety in the background where they aren’t exposed. This makes it hard for Dos attacks, SQL injections, and other attacks to gain access and advantage of your gateways vulnerabilities. API security, by itself, makes it worth using a gateway.

When working, you want to focus on the task at hand without interference from the microservice. An API gateway efficiently manages the rate limit, scaling, user access control, and token authorization so that you can focus. This is also an advantage since your API isn’t tasked with processing or formatting any responses. The gateway takes care of the formatting, routing, and even the cache.

As a developer, you want to know what’s happening behind the scenes as you create applications. Although some API gateways come with monitoring and analytic tools, you may need to use third parties with some gateways. Either way, monitoring, and analytical tools help you debug and create infrastructure easily and keep you updated throughout the application development process.

You can also use API gateways for simple validation processes, such as ensuring the client has provided all the information when they make requests. Because API gateways are also used for authentication, the client only needs to authenti0cate once, which is advantageous.

With all the advantages highlighted, it’s evident that using an API gateway for your application is better.