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gateway-dimensions.md

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Gateway Dimensions

All of this research into 38 API gateways, distilling down their capabilities and policies can be distilled down into several relevant areas that will shape the next generation of API operations. Currently, there are 13 specific areas that will shape how gateways are put to work within the enterprise, and determine how to scale, optimize, and govern within and outside the enterprise as part of the API economy.

Dimensions

  • Centralized - Many enterprises have a single centralized gateway handling all traffic coming from outside the enterprise via a single entry point. That provides an industrial-grade way of handling traffic coming in and out of the enterprise.
  • Federated - It is increasingly common for enterprises to support a federated gateway approach for making APIs available across domains, acquisitions, and lines of business, and helping to manage traffic in and out of the sprawling enterprise landscape.
  • Regional - The deployment of regionally specific gateways has emerged to respond to increased regulation and data sovereignty rules in many regions. Regional gateways also bring resources and capabilities closer to the consumer.
  • Vendors - It is common for enterprise organizations to have API gateways from multiple vendors, providing a mix of gateway solutions teams can use when securing APIs or managing the access to digital resources and capabilities within a specific cloud.
  • Contracts - Machine-readable contracts will shape the runtime, and will be how we maintain alignment across the API Lifecycle.
  • Lifecycle - A platform approach to bridging the gateway across the lifecycle will be needed to go beyond what we know as API management.
  • Multi-Protocol - HTTP has got us here and will take us into the future, but currently there are numerous protocols we need to support.
  • Multi-Gateway - As much as leadership would like to centralize the gateway, we are living in a multi-gateway reality, so deal with it.
  • Multi-Cloud - A utopian multi-cloud reality doesn’t exist, but we will need to be able to function across almost any cloud available today.
  • Policies - Defining, standardizing, enabling, enforcing, and evolving upon policies is going to be the top way that API Operations are shaped.
  • Programmability - Tomorrow’s gateway will have to be programmable to keep up with the pace of change that exists across our operations.
  • Edge - Delivering APIs, where they are needed to support different types of consumers, is rapidly shaping how we put API gateways to work.
  • Orchestration - Making to existing Kubernetes and containerization orchestrations appears to be a top approach for many operations.
  • GitOps - Further mapping the gateway to the existing software development lifecycle and equipping teams is where things are at.
  • Observability - Going beyond availability and leveraging the rich operations data at runtime to inform and enable developers earlier in the lifecycle.

These are the areas that matter the most when it comes to the realities teams are facing on the ground within enterprise operations. These aren’t born out of just the capabilities of gateways, but also conversations and research with practitioners at all levels, ensuring that the progressive aspects of enterprise gateway operations are reflected in how we move forward.