APIgatewaysi
APIgatewaysi is a term used to describe a class of software components that sit at the edge of an API ecosystem to manage, route, and secure API traffic. Acting as a reverse proxy, it receives client requests, determines the target service, and enforces organizational policies before forwarding traffic to backend services.
Core functions include request routing and load balancing, support for multiple protocols (HTTP/1.x, HTTP/2, gRPC, GraphQL),
Deployment patterns include edge gateways deployed near clients to protect and accelerate exposure of APIs, and
Security and governance aspects include TLS termination or end-to-end TLS, mutual TLS for service-to-service authentication, IP
Interoperability and standards considerations reflect the need to handle diverse APIs, with common support for OpenAPI