API gateways.
An API gateway sits in front of backend services handling routing, authentication, rate limiting, request transformation and observability, so those concerns are implemented once rather than in every service.
Where API gateways fits on a long engagement.
Centralising cross-cutting concerns is the point. Authentication, rate limiting and logging implemented once at the edge are consistent by construction, where the same concerns implemented per service are consistent only until someone is in a hurry.
The failure mode is the gateway becoming a monolith. Business logic, complex transformations and routing rules accumulate until it is a critical component nobody wants to change, and every team is blocked behind whoever owns it. Keeping it to genuinely cross-cutting concerns is a discipline that erodes without enforcement.
What an assigned team does with API gateways.
The gateway is on the critical path for everything. Its availability is the system's availability, and a change to it can affect every service simultaneously.
That risk profile means gateway changes need the same care as a database migration, which is the kind of standard the assigned specialists hold under devops as a service.
What we use API gateways for.
- Authentication implemented once Consistent enforcement at the edge rather than per service.
- Rate limiting before traffic reaches services Abuse and overload handled where it costs least.
- Logic kept out of the gateway Cross-cutting concerns only, so it does not become a bottleneck nobody can change.
How API gateways capacity is assigned.
Gateway work is assigned inside platform capacity, with scope deliberately limited to cross-cutting concerns.
Tell us what your roadmap needs API gateways for.
A service delivery manager replies with the disciplines we would assign, the monthly capacity and what the first month looks like.
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