on 07-Feb-2023 05:00
Before we dive into our API gateway use case, we will go one step back and check why the move to API driven applications, below are some of the benefits for this move:
Loose coupling: API-based applications can be built and maintained independently, allowing for faster development and deployment cycles.
Reusability: APIs can be reused across multiple applications, reducing the need to duplicate code and effort.
Scalability: API-based architecture allows for easier scaling of individual services, rather than having to scale the entire application.
Flexibility: APIs allow for different client applications to consume the same services, such as web, mobile, and IoT devices.
Interoperability: APIs facilitate communication between different systems and platforms, enabling integration with third-party services and data sources.
Microservices: API-based architecture allows developers to build small, modular services that can be developed, deployed, and scaled independently.
NGINX Management Suite API Connectivity Manager adds to the capabilities of the API driven applications a secure approach to authenticate, access and developing those API based applications.
API Connectivity Manager is used to connect, secure, and govern our APIs. In addition, API Connectivity Manager lets us separate infrastructure lifecycle management from the API lifecycle, giving the IT/Ops teams and application developers the ability to work independently.
API Connectivity Manager provides the following features:
Use case Overview
In our case we will have three teams,
Authentication in our case is done via two methods,
Note, More Authentication methods can be used (JSON Web Token Assertion) included in the following tutorial.
API authentication more detailed discussion can be found here Application Programming Interface (API) Authentication types simplified
Additional features like API rate limiting can be applied as well, here's a toturial to enable that feature.
In our use case will have three flows,
Management flow
Metrics and events flow
Data flow
NGINX tutorial on how to streamline API operations with API Connectivity Manager,
ِThe steps we are going to follow with some useful tutorial videos are highlighted below,
The detailed lab guide and the implementation videos
Cloud labs detailed guide https://clouddocs.f5.com/training/community/nginx/html/class10/class10.html
UDF lab can be found here as well https://udf.f5.com/b/ed5ffb71-bcce-47ec-9d9f-307441e4c12c#documentation
Below a recorded Lab walkthrough by our awesome guru @Matt_Dierick