Imagine walking into a bustling food court. There are counters for Indian, Chinese, Italian cuisines. Instead of running to each counter, you place your entire order with a single server who coordinates everything behind the scenes and brings your food to the table.
That server is the API Gateway in your distributed system. It handles requests, orchestrates calls to various services, enforces rules, and delivers a unified response.
What Is an API Gateway?
An API Gateway is the single entry point for all clients (mobile, web, third-party). It manages requests by:
Routing to appropriate microservices
Aggregating data from multiple services
Enforcing authentication, rate limiting, logging, caching, etc.
