Load Balancing with Kong API Gateway using Docker

Developers are increasingly adopting microservices architecture to overcome the limitations of monolithic applications, with microservices being small, independent, and loosely coupled modules that communicate via APIs. This architecture enhances fault tolerance, continuous delivery, and scalability across regions, ensuring high availability. The article provides an example of using Kong, an open-source API gateway, for load balancing, which offers more control over authentication, rate limiting, and data transformation from a centralized location compared to typical load balancers. Load balancing is crucial for distributing user requests across multiple services to prevent overloading any single host. Kong supports various load balancing methods, including DNS-based, round-robin, and hash-based balancing, and can be installed in different operating environments. The setup involves using NGINX instances and configuring services with endpoints, with Kong acting as a reverse proxy to distribute traffic. The article also discusses implementing a key-auth plugin for authentication and highlights the importance of monitoring Kong logs for load balancing decisions, with Moesif providing API analytics for better observability and debugging.