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An API gateway is an interface between clients (such as web or mobile applications) and backend microservices. It acts as the single point of contact for clients, receiving their API calls and directing each request to the appropriate backend service.
Benefits of an API Gateway
API gateways create abstraction of the backend. This provides a number of benefits for organizations that use them.
Facilitating Microservice Architectures
In modern architectures, large monolithic services are being replaced by smaller microservices. API gateways abstract the complexity of microservices for clients, allowing developers to maintain a more flexible and scalable backend architecture. For instance, an e-commerce store might have different microservices for product details, pricing, and reviews, which an API gateway can aggregate and provide to the client without the client needing to know the details of each microservice.
Insulating Microservices
By acting as an intermediary, an API gateway protects backend microservices from direct client access. This provides developers with more options, such as using web-unfriendly protocols for internal communication within the backend.
Simplifying Client Communication
Clients don’t need to know the specifics of accessing various microservices, their locations, or communication protocols. The API gateway handles all these complexities, making it easier for clients to interact with the backend.
Improving Performance
API gateways can consolidate multiple API calls into a single request and response, reducing network latency and enhancing overall performance.
API Gateway and Web Security
Some specialized vendors integrate web security functionality into their products. While this might seem logical at first, there are reasons why this approach may not be optimal:
- Redundant Functionality: Backend microservices and web applications require similar protection against threats like vulnerability scans, DDoS attacks, and hacking attempts. Organizations often use Web Application Firewalls (WAFs) to protect their web applications. Having an API gateway perform the same security role for its endpoints can result in redundant systems.
- Difficult Maintenance: The Internet threat landscape is complex and ever-changing. Maintaining two separate security components (WAF and API gateway) can be challenging for administrators, potentially leading to security gaps.
- Inadequate Security: Ensuring comprehensive web security is a complex task, and API gateways primarily designed for managing APIs might not offer the same level of security as dedicated WAF solutions.
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The Best Approach for Protecting APIs
API gateways offer a number of advantages, but robust security is not among them.
For robust web and API security, the best practice is to deploy a cloud web security solution as a reverse proxy in front of the gateway. This approach allows organizations to preserve the advantages of using an API gateway while benefiting from comprehensive security measures that can handle both web application and API endpoint security effectively. This strategy hardens the gateway and backend network against Internet threats without adding undue administrative burden to the IT staff.
Furthermore, an effective external solution will not only include common web security techniques (such as validating and sanitizing user input to prevent injection and XSS attacks), it will also include technologies that many API gateways do not (such as behavioral analysis, advanced rate limiting, bot management, and others).
API gateway – Conclusion
An API gateway plays a crucial role in serving as an interface between clients and backend microservices, simplifying communication and enhancing overall performance. However, while some API gateways may offer limited web security functionalities, organizations must recognize the need for robust protection against sophisticated threats (such as API attacks), and should include additional security measures such as a comprehensive WAAP (web application and API protection) platform.
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