What is API Gateway?
A server that acts as entry point for APIs, handling routing, auth, and rate limiting.
An API Gateway is a server that sits in front of your microservices and handles cross-cutting concerns like authentication, rate limiting, SSL termination, request routing, and logging. It gives clients a single endpoint instead of needing to know every service's address. Common options include AWS API Gateway, Kong, nginx, and Traefik. In Kubernetes, the Gateway API is the next-generation standard replacing Ingress.
Related Terms
More Networking Terms
Cilium
eBPF-based networking, security, and observability for Kubernetes clusters.
CNI (Container Network Interface)
A specification and plugins for configuring network interfaces in Linux containers.
eBPF
A Linux kernel technology for running sandboxed programs without changing kernel source code.
Istio
A service mesh that adds mTLS, traffic management, and observability to Kubernetes services.
Network Policy
A Kubernetes resource that controls which pods can communicate with each other.
Service Mesh
A dedicated infrastructure layer for managing service-to-service communication in microservices.
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