What is an API Gateway?

The rapid increase of online services has driven the development of increasingly complex web applications using a microservice based system that can consist of dozens or even hundreds of individual services communicating with each other via APIs.

So how do you manage this increase of API traffic if you intend to scale and add more functionality to your app?

In this lightboard video, Jason Goode with IBM, demonstrates how implementing an API Gateway solution can help you better manage complex application communication by using an example of an eCommerce storefront that gets a surge in web traffic.

Chapters
0:00 - Intro to APIs
0:24 - Monolith to microservices
0:41 - Direct client to microservice communication
1:17 - eCommerce Storefront example
2:17 - Product detail UI functions
3:14 - Implementing an API Gateway architecture
3:47 - Client performance
5:14 - Adding extra security layers
5:51 - Protocol translation
7:06 - Offloading common functionality
8:06 - Black Friday traffic spike example
8:21 - Implementing a Backends for frontends (BFF) architecture
9:36 - Summary

#APIGateway #APIs #IBMCloud

[IBMTechnology]

Congrats to Parth Vikani for being the first lucky viewer to answer the question correctly! Thank you again to everyone who participated in the contest and please make sure to subscribe!

[shreyanshgupta]

SSL termination (or SSL offloading) is the process of decrypting this encrypted traffic. Instead of relying upon the web server to do this computationally intensive work, we can use SSL termination to reduce the load on our servers, speed up the process, and allow the web server to focus on its core responsibility of delivering web content.

[MrEvansjethro]

There's a lot to learn in IT, and often times you become anxious. However, the great deal about IBM Technology, is that you get a preview of your concerned aspect of Technology before you can actually dive deep into learning it, which makes it a lot easier because by then you will have a clear perspective and concept about your Technology of concern. Thank you IBM Technology.

[PranavBhattarai]

IBM is doing nice things.
Engaging with us through this medium helps to solidify our virtual bond between us.
I hope IBM makes a lot of these videos in the future. And at some point create a playlist so viewers can understand the flow, like from where it would be great to start and where are we going towards.

Love you guys.
And although many people have already answered the question of "What is SSL termination", I will attempt to answer that question because "what if...", here you go:

SSL termination refers to the process of decrypting encrypted traffic before passing it along to a web server. 💁

[Safirshad]

HI Jason, Thanks for your nice explanation.
""SSL Termination""
For all incoming HTTPS connections, the load balancer service ends the SSL connection and establishes a plain text HTTP communication with the back-end server. CPU-intensive SSL handshakes and encryption or decryption tasks are shifted away from the back-end servers, allowing them to use all their CPU cycles for processing application traffic.

[nive]

SSL termination is a process where we decrypt and offload the encrypted SSL data within the API Gateway instead of going to our backend microservices which helps performance of our frontend.

[andypsc]

Thanks for having this channel IBM. I think IBM has done a good job in social responsibility by sharing valuable info, knowledge to the everyone. thumb up IBM.

[bitcrawler]

The presentation and production quality are super duper amazing. I wish any content would look like this

[danygagnon]

Thanks so much for all these videos. I am binge watching them in no particular order. I love these videos

[devrajin]

SSL Termination is basically refers to the process of decrypting the encrypted traffic/data before passing it to a web server that helps the web server to speed up its process so that it can smoothly deliver the content that is requested by the client

[preechakhomvilai]

SSL termination is the process of decrypting HTTPS traffic and forwarding plain HTTP traffic to downstream systems. In the context of API Gateway, one could imagine a publicly accessible API Gateway to do the SSL termination and safely route HTTP traffic to private services thus saving on some computational overhead.

[guysela]

How did you improve client performance? You still have 5 roundtrips, just done by the API gateway instead of the client. Did you mean to say it's faster because the API Gateway sits closer to the microservices themselves?

[patrickwheeler]

This was very helpful. Moving from a monolithic database to microservices, this was helpful.

[royy]

The thing I love most about this video is how your shirt was custom made for this video. I would want *that* specific shirt. Kudos for going the extra mile! Also, nice job on the technical explanation too! ;-)

[FelixZhao]

Hey!
SSL termination refers to the process of decrypting encrypted SSL/TLS traffic at a network device, such as a load balancer or reverse proxy, before forwarding it to the destination server. When SSL termination occurs, the encrypted traffic is decrypted, allowing the network device to inspect, route, and process the data in plaintext.

[gustavo]

Nice video!! A secure socket layer (SSL) connection uses a certificate for authentication before sending encrypted data from a client computer to the web server.

[robergeFelix]

SSL( Secure Socket Layer). SSL Termination is the process of decrypting encrypted traffic before passing it to a web server. This prevents you from relying upon the webserver to do this intensive computational work. Help reduce the load on the server and speed up the process which is very important in a microservice architecture like you have just shown.

[narveshnimje]

SSL termination is a process by which SSL-encrypted data traffic is decrypted (or offloaded). Servers with a secure socket layer (SSL) connection can simultaneously handle many connections or sessions. SSL termination helps speed the decryption process and reduces the processing burden on backend servers.

[tyronefrielinghaus]

This video was NOT up to the usual standard of IBM technology light board video. Too vague, presenter not dynamic.

[sheepsus]

daaamn these educators are what i wish i had in my college