API Gateway: Layer 8 network
Recognizing that the API gateway is very important in the
eighth layer of networking, the reason is to discuss its role as a strategic
control point in the network architecture.
API is a set of rules for managing data exchange between
devices. "Most of the network runs based on HTTP. Smart devices, networked
devices, and automation systems all rely on HTTP to monitor and operate their
applications and services to exchange API calls and data."
It establishes the definition of APIs and proves that APIs
are on top of the existing network stack, which makes them the eighth layer.
Now consider the definition of an API gateway:
"The API gateway receives all API calls from the
client, and then routes them to the appropriate microservices through request
routing, composition, and protocol conversion. Normally, it processes a request
by calling multiple microservices, and aggregates the results into Determine
the best path. It can convert between network protocols and unfriendly network
protocols used internally."
I can rewrite this definition and use an IPv6 gateway to
illustrate this parallel relationship, but I will not emphasize this point.
Recognizing that the API gateway is very important in the eighth layer of
networking, the reason is to discuss its role as a strategic control point in
the network architecture.
Just as ADC has become a strategic control point for routing
requests, converting protocols (HTTPS to HTTP), and finding the best path (load
balancing/global server load balancing), API gateways are rapidly becoming a
strategy in the "application" network Control point. The reason I use
the shocking tone is because it is not a true independent network, but an independent
plane in the existing network stack. It is incremental, not a substitute.
Whenever an architectural structure becomes the
"thing" that all traffic passes through, it becomes a strategic
control point that can make decisions. These decisions may be related to
security, such as redirecting requests for operational API commands through a
certain security mechanism to ensure the legitimacy and authority of such
commands by the requester. These decisions may be related to performance, such
as their ability to determine the "best path" based on business
results related to digital experience expectations. This may be due to
availability despite performance degradation, or it may be based solely on
performance. With its architectural position in the network, the API gateway is
often the best judge of how to meet these expectations.
API gateways are undoubtedly becoming a "trend".
According to our research, nearly half (48%) of organizations are already using
them, and a quarter (25%) of organizations plan to use them by the end of 2021.
This is a good thing, because API usage continues to explode
in minutes. A survey conducted at the end of 2020 found that "through
2021, the use of APIs will have greater growth. The survey found that 71.1% of
developers expect to use more APIs in 2021."
The combination of digital transformation and the adoption
of modern, microservice-based architectures must be behind this growth. For
example, a survey by Propeller Insights in 2020 found that the optimal number
of APIs per application is between 26 and 50.
Therefore, this growth is really or may be explosive.
Because as usual, this has not yet taken into account the proliferation of
cloud and other operational APIs that are exposed to manage and operate
everything from the Internet of Things to network devices to management
consoles.
The growth of API is inevitable. This growth effectively
adds more traffic to the network—requests and responses—on a layer above the
traditional network stack. This makes the emergence of a network structure
inevitably to provide routing, security, and management of requests and
responses across the network.
This structure is the API gateway, which will become a
strategic control point for enterprises to manage, guarantee and optimize the
experience of operators and consumers (albeit without their knowledge) using
them.