System Design Interview: What is an API Gateway?

Learn how to add an API Gateway to your design.

Arslan Ahmad
Geek Culture

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API Gateway

An API gateway is a server that acts as a single point of entry for a set of microservices.

It receives client requests, forwards them to the appropriate microservice, and then returns the server’s response to the client.

The API gateway is responsible for tasks such as routing, authentication, and rate limiting. This enables microservices to focus on their individual tasks and improves the overall performance and scalability of the system.

Usage

API gateways are used for a variety of purposes in microservice architectures, including the following:

  1. Routing: The API gateway receives requests from clients and routes them to the appropriate microservice. This enables clients to access the various microservices through a single entry point, simplifying the overall system design.
  2. Authentication and Authorization: The API gateway can be used to authenticate clients and enforce access control policies for the microservices. This helps to ensure that only authorized clients can access the microservices and helps to prevent unauthorized access.
  3. Rate limiting: You can rate limit client access to microservices…

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Arslan Ahmad
Geek Culture

Founder www.designgurus.io | Formally a software engineer @ Facebook, Microsoft, Hulu, Formulatrix | Entrepreneur, Software Engineer, Writer.