Why do you need a self-service API gateway?

Learn why self-service API gateways are vital for Kubernetes and DevOps teams.

Before Kubernetes, users would send requests to an API gateway which would then route to a single, monolithic application. The monolithic application was likely developed by a team of many developers, and any changes to the API gateway would be reviewed by the operations team, who was responsible for managing the gateway.

How Microservices Change Your API Gateway

With Kubernetes, many organizations will adopt a microservices architecture and split up their application into many smaller components or services. From a development perspective, microservices allow small teams to own individual services, increasing efficiency and development velocity, as they are able to push smaller, asynchronous releases for individual services instead of coordinating a single, massive release.

However, a consequence of the microservices architecture is that the API gateway now routes to multiple locations instead of to a single monolith. For an operations team, this means a significant increase in work, as each team requires multiple configuration changes for their services. This can quickly lead to a bottleneck in work, and a decrease in feature and development velocity.

The Self-Service API Gateway

The self-service model empowers application development teams to make their own configuration changes to an API gateway for their microservices without impacting other services. This removes the bottleneck caused by waiting for operations to configure the API gateway and enables organizations to reap the benefits of Kubernetes and microservices.

For example, one of the benefits of a self-serve API is allowing client-side applications to manage their own credentials independently.

Learn More

• High Scalability with Kubernetes API Gateway
• Self-service APIs | Benefits for your business via technology
• APIs to Enable “Self-Service” Integration