What is an API Gateway in cloud environments?
⚡
Quick Answer
An API Gateway is a managed entry point that sits in front of backend services to route requests and handle cross-cutting concerns — authentication, rate limiting, TLS, caching, request/response transformation, and monitoring.
Detailed Answer
It decouples clients from backend topology and centralizes policy: auth (JWT/OAuth), throttling to protect services, usage plans/keys, and observability. In microservices it prevents each service from re-implementing these concerns. Watch it as a potential single point of failure and latency hop, so make it highly available.
💡
Interview Tip
List the cross-cutting concerns it centralizes (auth, rate limiting, TLS) — that is the essence of why gateways exist.
api-gatewaycloudmicroservices