Company
Date Published
Author
Andre Newman
Word count
1984
Language
English
Hacker News points
None

Summary

API gateways are crucial components in cloud-native systems, performing functions like request routing, authentication, caching, and more. Failures in these gateways can jeopardize entire deployments, making their resilience a priority. The text explores the application of Chaos Engineering to test and enhance the resilience of API gateways by simulating conditions such as backend outages and high network latency. It highlights the use of tools like Gremlin to conduct controlled experiments, validate load balancing, caching mechanisms, and the general reliability of the gateway itself. Examples include simulating service unavailability to test load balancing, using latency attacks to assess caching effectiveness, and conducting shutdown attacks to test Kubernetes' ability to restart failed pods. The text suggests building a practice of frequent automated experiments to maintain API reliability as system configurations evolve.