Load Balancer vs API Gateway
Hi Friends,
In this week’s newsletter, we will learn and compare a Load Balancer and API Gateway as they can be confusing and look similar from the outside, but they are different.
Load Balancer:
A Load Balancer distributes incoming network or application traffic across multiple servers to ensure no single server becomes overwhelmed, increasing reliability, availability, and performance.
How Load Balancers Work:
Load balancers receive user requests and route them to the least busy or closest server based on algorithms enhancing application responsiveness and availability.
API Gateway:
An API Gateway is a single entry point for all API calls from clients to backend services. It simplifies the client interface, manages API requests, and routes them to the appropriate microservices.
The API Gateway decouples client interfaces from backend implementations, allowing consistent communication even as internal services evolve.
API Gateway is crucial in microservices architectures. It aggregates related requests, directs them to the correct microservices, and compiles responses efficiently. It also enforces security policies and manages service availability and behaviour.
Best suited for microservices-based applications, API Gateways enable independent services to function cohesively and securely.
Key Differences and Implementation:
Load balancers can be hardware-based or software-based, focusing on traffic distribution. API Gateways are typically implemented as services, deployed as containers or VM instances, focusing on API management.
Load balancers direct traffic to optimize server response and availability. API Gateways manage API requests, ensuring they are processed and routed efficiently to the appropriate services. This includes handling protocol translations and aggregating responses.
While load balancers primarily focus on distributing traffic using specific algorithms, API Gateways offer advanced functionalities like API security (authentication, authorization), rate limiting, monitoring, logging, and API transformation. This facilitates communication between different protocols or technology stacks.
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