API Gateway
An API Gateway is a crucial software layer that sits between a client (like a mobile app or website) and a collection of backend services or systems. It acts as a single access point, managing requests from clients and routing them to the appropriate services. This centralizes functions like authentication, rate limiting, and load balancing, which enhances security and performance. Essentially, it simplifies interactions and helps ensure that the right data gets to the right place efficiently, making it easier for developers to manage complex systems.
Additional Insights
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An API gateway is like a traffic director for web services. It manages how requests from users are sent to different services in a network. Instead of contacting each service directly, users send their requests to the gateway, which then routes them to the appropriate service. This helps streamline communication, enhances security, and can simplify the user experience. By doing this, the API gateway can also handle tasks like user authentication, rate limiting, and data transformation, making it easier to manage complex applications and improve reliability.