Application gateways

While load balancers provide basic traffic distribution services, application gateways offer more advanced intermediary proxy functionality tailored for modern cloud-based environments.

An application gateway sits between clients and backend services, intercepting traffic to provide routing, security, acceleration, analytics, and adaptability capabilities. Application gateways are especially beneficial for architectures based on microservices, where numerous independent services must be aggregated into unified APIs.

We will cover the key features and benefits of application gateways, their importance for microservices, real-world implementation options, and critical design considerations when integrating them into cloud architectures. Figure 4.8 shows a typical API gateway, which is the first point of contact for incoming API traffic and covers different aspects of security, AuthN, AuthZ, caching, and even load balancing.

Figure...