A Hitchhiker's Guide to Cloud-Native API Gateways

| JavaLand 2021 | A Hitchhiker's Guide to Cloud native API Gateways | @LeanderReimer #cloudnativenerd #qaware @JavaLandConf

A HITCHHIKER’S

GUIDE TO

CLOUD NATIVE

API GATEWAYS

Mario-Leander Reimer

Principal Software Architect

@LeanderReimer

#cloudnativenerd #qaware

https://lreimer.github.io

3
https://imgur.com/gallery/LGAZEqu
The Earl
y

Code Monkey
The Monolith

4
Monolithic

Vintage System
Users
system.example.com

autonomous bounded contexts
loosely coupled stateless
makeameme.org

6
Users
Monolithic

Legacy System
A Shared PaaS
A Namespace
Service A
system.example.com
service-a.default.example.com
Route

7
Users
Monolithic

Legacy System
A Shared PaaS
A Namespace
Service A
system.example.com
Route
Service B
Route
service-b…

8
Users
Monolithic

Legacy System
A Shared PaaS
A Namespace
Service A
system.example.com
Route
Service B
Route
service-b…
Service C
Route
service-c…

9
Users
Monolithic

Legacy System
A Shared PaaS
A Namespace
Service A’
system.example.com
Route
Service B
Route
service-b…
Service C'
Route
service-c…
3rd Party Apps

10
Users
Monolithic

Legacy System
A Shared PaaS
A Namespace
Service A’
system.example.com
Route
Service B
Route
service-b…
Service C'
Route
service-c…
3rd Party Apps
B Namespace
Service X
Service Y
Service Z’
Unreliable

Legacy
Systems
SOAP
gRPC

11
Users
Monolithic

Legacy System
A Shared PaaS
A Namespace
Service A’
system.example.com
Route
Service B
Route
service-b…
Service C'
Route
service-c…
3rd Party Apps
B Namespace
Service X
Service Y
Service Z’
Unreliable

Legacy
Systems
SOAP
gRPC
Route
Internal
Systems

12
APIs are the center piece of any
successful digital product.

   
https://thenewstack.io/history-service-mesh/

13
APIs are the center piece of any
successful digital product.

Proper management of your
APIs right from the start is crucial,
to not end up in API hell.
https://thenewstack.io/history-service-mesh/

14
Users
Monolithic

Legacy System
A Shared PaaS
A Namespace
Service A
Service B
Service C
3rd Party Apps
B Namespace
Service X
Service Y
Service Z
Unreliable

Legacy
Systems
SOAP
API

Gateway
Backend
for
Frontend
Internal
Systems
API
Gateway
API
Proxy

15
API Gateways

are like the Façade Pattern in
 
Cloud Native Application Design

and Microservice Architectures

• Tra
ffi
c Management: Path, Header, Host based Routing, Path Rewrite

• Rollout and Deployment: A/B Deployment, Canary Release, et.al.

• QoS and Resiliency: Circuit Breaker, Retry, Timeouts, Rate Limiting

• Security: AAA, Terminate TLS, Support for JWT and JWKS, Open ID, …

• Protocol Translation: XML to JSON, gRPC to JSON, …

• Transformation: Fan Out / Collect, Backend for Frontend, GraphQL, …

• Observability: Integration into Logging, Monitoring, Tracing Stacks
16

17
W E
N
S
Ingress
Egress
API Gateways for

North-South Communication
Service Meshes for

East-West Communication

API Gateways in a Nutshell
• Bene
fi
ts

• Encapsulates internal
structure of application

• Provides client-speci
fi
c APIs

• B4Fs reduce the number of
client-server round trips

• Simpli
fi
es client code
18
• Drawbacks

• Yet another highly available
component that needs to be
managed and deployed

• Risk of becoming a DevOps
bottleneck if managed centrally

• Business logic in API gateway
leads to accidental ESB

Possible Criteria for a Comparison
• Maturity: good and active community, little issues, frequent releases

• License: open source or backed by commercial vendor

• Supported Features: Tra
ffi
c Management, Deployment, Security,
Translation, Transformation, QoS, Resiliency, Observability

• DevOps Friendly: Easy setup and operability, supported platforms, CI/CD

• Performance: Small overhead, high throughput, super scalable

• Observability: good logging, monitoring, tracing capabilities + integration
19

A Hitchhiker's Guide to Cloud-Native API Gateways

Four Categories of API Gateways
A. API Management Solutions

B. Build Your Own API Gateway

C. Service Proxies

D. Cloud Native API Gateways
22

A. API Management Solutions
23
• Several full-blown API Management solutions: Kong, Tyk, Mulesoft,
3scale, Apigee, …

• Makes sense in Enterprise use cases. Generally cost $$$.

• Provide additional features such as payment, developer portals with
API key management, integrations into enterprise infrastructure.

• Usually, centrally deployed and operated for the whole platform and all
the applications.

• 80/20 rule applies, like with any other COTS product.

B. Build Your Own API Gateway
24
• Several frameworks available: Net
fl
ix Zuul 2, Spring Cloud Gateway,
Node, Vert.x, Ballerina, Java EE 8, Camel, Express Gateway, …

• Provides a lot of
fl
exibility.

• But: your team needs to develop, maintain and operate the gateway!

C. Service Proxies
25
• Many choices: Apache, HA Proxy, Nginx, OpenResty, Trae
fi
k, Envoy, …

• Lightweight and simple to use.

• Provided features vary a lot between products.

D. Cloud Native API Gateways
26
• Few choices: KrakenD, Ambassador, Gloo, Maesh

• Usually build upon a service proxy such as Envoy and enhance it.

• Provide tight integration with cloud native platform, like K8s.

DEMOS
27
https://github.com/lreimer/hitchhikers-guide-api-gateways
 
https://github.com/lreimer/hands-on-krakend

THE ANSWER TO LIFE, UNIVERSE,

THE CLOUD, AND API GATEWAYS.
28
42.

Visit the QAware booth betweem 10:00 - 13:00

Mario-Leander Reimer

Principal Software Architect, QAware GmbH

mario-leander.reimer@qaware.de

https://www.qaware.de

https://speakerdeck.com/lreimer/
&

A Hitchhiker's Guide to Cloud-Native API Gateways

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