Exposing services to clients
An API gateway is one of the core components when developing a microservices architecture. Exposing microservices directly to clients is not a good practice due to many factors. You should evaluate the following:
- Are the services directly consumed by the frontend application?
- Is there a gateway that acts as a facade for all backend services?
- Does the gateway provide quota limits, mocking responses and filtering Internet Protocol (IP), and other policies?
- Are you using multiple API gateways to address the needs of different clients?
- Does the gateway provide a portal where clients can come to discover and subscribe to services such as a developer portal in Azure API Management?
- Does your API gateway provide L7 load balancer or WAF capabilities?