Apigee Edge Microgateway: Why Would You Want to Use It and When Should You? 10 Typical Use Cases

So you're evaluating and comparing all the available solutions for centralizing and standardizing your APIs. And you can't help wondering: "When is it recommended that I use Apigee Edge Microgateway?"

Why would you use it in the first place, over other platforms for managing internal APIs? Over... the Apigee Edge gateway, for instance?

What "irresistible" capabilities does it provide?

And when precisely should you use it? What are its typical use cases?

Let's get you some answers:
 

1. What Is Apigee Edge Microgateway? How Does It Work?

If I was to compress its definition in a short line, it would go something like this:

Apigee Edge Microgateway is a hybrid cloud solution for managing your APIs.

Whereas if I was to opt for a detailed one:

It's an HTTP-based message processor for APIs, built on Nodejs, that enables you to centralize and manage all your APIs in a hybrid cloud deployment setup.

From traffic management to enterprise-grade security, to analytics, spike arrest, and quota (and the list goes on), it provides you with most of the standard Apigee Edge capabilities.

Moreover, you get to install it either on the same machine or in the same data center.

Source: docs.apigee.com

"And how exactly does it work?" you'll then ask yourself.

It processes the messages — requests, and responses — going to and from your backend services. Meaning that it'll asynchronously push API execution data to Apigee Edge once consumed by the Edge Analytics.

"What about the Edge Microgateway deployment scenarios? What are my options?"

Well, there are quite a few, since you get to deploy it:
 

• in PaaS platforms (e.g. Cloud Foundry)
• Azure App Services
• as a service instead of sidecar
• integrated with Kubernetes
• as a Docker container
• in cloud-native PaaS platforms (e.g Google App Engine)
• in virtual machines as standalone processes

2. Why Precisely This API Management Solution? 5 Big Benefits

Why would you go with Apigee Edge Microgateway over another setup for centralizing and administering your APIs?

Here are some of the strongest API management capabilities that it provides you with:
 

• enterprise-grade security: it authenticates requests based on an API key or signed access token that each client app gets via Apigee Edge
• analytics: it publishes all the data analytics to Apigee Edge so that everyone gets traffic stats in real-time
• configuration: no special coding is needed to set up Apigee Edge Microgtateway 
• rapid deployment: you get to deploy an instance in no time 
• reduced latency: it collects and sends API data to Apigee Edge asynchronously, therefore with minimal delay
   

3. When Would You Use It? What Are Its Typical Use Cases?

When is it best to go with a hybrid deployment model for managing your APIs?

Source: LinkedIn

Here are some of the most common use cases of Apigee Edge Microgateway:
 

• for an application running on a microservices architecture
• to keep API traffic within specific limits set for compliance and security reasons
• to provide Apigee API management for services running in Kubernetes
• for behavioral testing (of the scaling, of the infrastructure...)
• for disaster recovery
• to speed up API traffic for services running in close proximity 
• when legal and geographical boundaries are involved; for instance, when some of your global products need to run in regional data centers due to issues regarding personal data
• to keep processing messages even when there's no internet connection
• for cost management and market segregation
   

4. And What's the Difference Between Apigee Edge and Microgateway?

Apigee Edge vs Microgateway... why should you consider the later?

How are they different more exactly? 

Especially since it gets even more confusing when considering that you even get Apigee Edge Microgateway plugins, which are so similar to Apigee Edge's policies...

What capabilities, that you can benefit from using Apigee Edge, does Microgateway lack, for instance?

Now, in terms of differences, here's a general "rule of thumb":

Apigee Edge Microgateway does not come to replace the Edge gateway. 

It has its own specific "lighter" use cases, like various mediations, key verification, quota that you can do with your backend services in close proximity, all while tapping into its robust above-mentioned capabilities.

The END!

Are you using Apigee Edge Microgateway? If so, what's your specific use case?

And why have you decided to go with Microgateway instead of Edge Gateway?


Image by Lynn Neo from Pixabay