Routing and Load Balancing
- API Gateways analyze incoming requests and determine which backend service should handle them based on various factors such as the request’s URL, headers, or even the content of the request.
- Additionally, they can distribute incoming requests evenly across multiple instances of the same service to ensure load balancing.
- Load balancing helps improve system performance by preventing any single service from being overwhelmed with requests and by providing fault tolerance.
Is API Gateway a Middleware?
Yes, an API Gateway is often considered a type of middleware. Middleware is software that sits between different applications or components in a system and provides services such as communication, data transformation, and security.
- An API Gateway acts as an intermediary between clients and backend services, routing requests, transforming data formats, and handling security and authentication.
- It abstracts the complexity of the underlying services and provides a unified interface for clients to interact with the system.
- In this sense, an API Gateway can be seen as a specialized form of middleware that specifically focuses on managing APIs (Application Programming Interfaces) and the interactions between clients and services.