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What is an API Gateway?

Blog post from Postman

Post Details
Company
Date Published
Author
The Postman Team
Word Count
1,751
Company Posts That Month
28
Language
English
Hacker News Points
-
Post removed?
No
Summary

An API gateway acts as a crucial centralized traffic manager for APIs, akin to a hotel concierge that authenticates and routes requests to the appropriate microservices, thereby streamlining client interactions and maintaining system efficiency. It offers a unified enforcement point for API standards, enhancing developer experience and compliance, especially in regulated industries like finance and healthcare. Key features include request routing, authentication, authorization, rate limiting, caching, and observability, transforming it into a foundation for governance and scalability. Different deployment models, such as single gateways, Backend-for-Frontend (BFF), and microgateways, cater to various organizational needs, while security measures like authentication, authorization, and logging ensure data protection and regulatory compliance. Testing and validating gateways collaboratively with tools like Postman helps teams ensure policy consistency and performance across environments. As the API gateway becomes an integral part of governance, observability, and continuous improvement, choosing the right gateway, whether cloud-managed, open-source, or service-mesh-integrated, depends on integration capabilities and operational needs.

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