How Does an API Gateway Improve Security? A Leader's Guide

API gateways serve as a crucial component in microservices architecture by acting as a single entry point for client applications, thus simplifying communication between clients and multiple back-end services. They enhance system security by monitoring traffic, centralizing security measures, and providing a protective layer against cyberattacks, which reduces the attack surface by abstracting the implementation details of underlying services. API gateways also help manage network latency and the complexity associated with direct client-to-API communications by aggregating requests and handling protocol transformations, thereby improving data flow efficiency and reducing workload on tech teams. While differentiating from API managers, which offer broader functions, API gateways focus on security and traffic management, and their correct implementation can avoid becoming a single point of failure through strategies like load balancing and replication.