In a complex microservices architecture, which specific capability of an API Gateway, beyond simple request forwarding, enables the creation of a unified API experience by combining data from multiple backend services into a single client response?

Request/response aggregation and transformation

A financial institution is migrating from a monolithic application to a microservices-based architecture. They need to expose several new APIs to external partners, requiring robust authentication, fine-grained authorization, and rate limiting per partner, along with detailed API usage analytics. Which component is best suited to manage these cross-cutting concerns for their public-facing APIs?

A high-performance reverse proxy

A DNS server configured for service discovery

A Content Delivery Network (CDN)

An API Gateway decouples client applications from the intricacies of the underlying microservices, including service discovery and versioning.

An API Gateway primarily ensures higher network throughput for all inbound requests.

An API Gateway centralizes the implementation of business logic that spans multiple microservices.

An API Gateway guarantees automatic failover and disaster recovery across geographical regions.

A Web Application Firewall (WAF)

A typical Layer 7 reverse proxy like Nginx or Apache HTTP Server

A content delivery network (CDN)

A high-capacity reverse proxy with SSL offloading

Each individual microservice instance

A core router in the data center

A reverse proxy exclusively uses static configurations, whereas an API Gateway often integrates with service discovery for dynamic routing.

A reverse proxy always routes based on the HTTP method, while an API Gateway only uses the URL path.

An API Gateway relies solely on IP addresses for routing, unlike a reverse proxy which uses domain names.

A reverse proxy can only route to a single backend server, while an API Gateway can route to multiple.

Within each individual microservice

A simple reverse proxy with a caching layer

A traditional load balancer appliance

A Content Delivery Network (CDN) with edge computing

Routing requests to different backend services based on the full URL path, combined with JWT validation for specific API endpoints.

Distributing incoming HTTP requests across identical backend web servers based on server load.

Terminating SSL/TLS connections to offload encryption/decryption from backend servers.

Serving static files directly from the proxy to reduce load on application servers.

The reverse proxy should be deployed in front of the API Gateway, handling initial traffic distribution and security.

The API Gateway should be deployed in front of the reverse proxy.

They should be deployed in parallel, each serving different types of traffic (e.g., HTTP vs. HTTPS).

They should never be used together, as their functionalities are mutually exclusive.

Implementing a 'kill switch' to immediately block all requests to a specific, failing backend API for all users.

Caching frequently accessed public static assets to reduce origin server load.

Distributing inbound web traffic across an array of identical web servers for a single web application.

Performing SSL/TLS offloading for encrypted web traffic before it reaches backend servers.

API gateway vs Reverse proxy - Test Paper