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Chief Technology Officer
Oct 10, 2024

Having multiple API gateways becomes a critical challenge for providers as it impacts their users’ experience and efficiency. Every company has its needs, consistent branding, and the gateways they have to rely on can have different operational principles—there is no one-size-fits-all solution. In this article we discuss our approach for handling such a complex system, and highlight the benefits of federated API management.
 

Needs and Pitfalls
 

The Provider

For strategic reasons, organizations deliberately implement APIs across multiple gateways. This way, they can better serve diverse technical requirements, avoid vendor lock-in, and solve conflicting gateway requirements with internal and external API programs.

Especially in larger organizations, the convergence of gateway vendors and cloud providers means that they need to deal with a fragmented gateway landscape.

The Consumer

When developers need to use APIs that are distributed over multiple gateways, they encounter at least a few of the following challenges: 

  • multiple authentication and authorization: distinct gateways have different methods for authentication (such as tokens or API keys), 
  • varying protocols: gateways may support various protocols, requiring the application to be adjusted accordingly, 
  • different documentation: documentation quality and styles can have many formats, which leads to fragmentation, not to mention multiple systems that house the documentation, 
  • performance issues: gateways can have varying performance characteristics, and 
  • integration complexities: APIs distributed over different gateways may require different integration patterns. 

These are just some of the issues that can emerge. As multiple API gateways influence the consumers’ work, they also affect the provider’s business. The integration process will be slower and might be incomplete, which can lead to issues in the long run. Straightforward and efficient systems are crucial in the API landscape. 

Is it possible to solve these issues, and maintain full functionality without losing key features?

Federated API Management: One Developer Portal to Document Them All

Federated API Management retains a level of centralized control while incorporating the beneficial aspects of siloed API deployment. It distributes API management across various teams or organizational units, while ensuring that the central oversight and governance are still in place. In other words, there is a balance between centralization and the autonomy and innovation that comes with decentralization.

In this model, gateways can operate from different locations or settings, with federated teams managing them according to the governance framework. This allows teams to use their preferred gateways, but the complexity needs to remain hidden from consumers, who should experience consistent documentation and seamless API access.

Specifically, developers (aka consumers) need comprehensive and unified documentation, one access point where they can find what they need without difficult authorization, varying protocols, performance issues, and so on. In this model, what does a healthy, comprehensive multi-gateway integration look like?

Leave Proxies Behind: Composable Flexible Forms


Proxy: Limitations

One commonly known method is to rely on proxies. Proxy providers focus on elements that are common in every gateway—even if it covers many parts, it does not result in an all-inclusive solution. As users can only have access to those features that are available on every gateway, feature loss is inevitable. 

Managing and configuring proxies adds another layer of complexity to a system, and maintaining them could mean additional costs. Proxies require translation from the source, which can introduce latency and make the process slower and less efficient than direct connections.

Webform: Overcome the Challenges

We recognized this issue, and based on our research and experience with developer portals, we came up with a solution. 

We rely on the Webform Drupal module and our extensions that add gateway capabilities to the Webform. In other words, it is a flexible form builder framework with a set of reusable form elements and handler plugins for distributing captured user input into one or many storage systems. 

Handlers can send the data to different locations, such as API gateways, ticketing systems, CRMs, and more. The ability to send access requests to ticketing systems and CRMs seamlessly expands API access requests to offline and semi-offline workflows, and enables a unified developer experience regardless of API gateway or other backend, to the extent possible. 

With this method (composable monolith), we can ensure direct integration. That means faster and more efficient communication, as there is no need for translation between the developer portal and the API gateway. Therefore, it’s possible to avoid features loss and performance issues. We call this the composable authorization architecture which means a ‘superset of multi-gateway’.

Simplify Complexity for a Seamless User Experience

A composable authorization architecture integrating API access across multiple API gateways and other backend systems allows diversity and complexity while keeping the integration experience simple enough. As your users shouldn’t have to deal with your internal complexities, we focus on their frictionless experience. 

The method we use enables a single API developer portal to support multiple gateway capabilities without additional agents or supporting software within your infrastructure. 

This framework addresses commonalities, and has plugins that address the specific features of each gateway.
 

'If you could bring your own API gateway to federated management platforms–or you could have many–, you should be able to bring your own developer portal, too. If you can choose, make it an open source devportal that saves you from vendor lock-in and adapts to your processes.'

- Dezső Biczó, CTO at Pronovix.

 

Break Down Gateway Silos: Flexible API Integration Solutions that scale

Our method fits neatly into the principles of federated API management: the user has one entry point for provisioning keys from which they do not have to deal with complexity (and neither does the provider).

Even if your teams prefer diverse gateways or you have to operate with different API management layers as your company grows, it does not have to be equal with ‘gateway silos’. At Pronovix we build you the right solution right now that is flexible enough and takes a holistic approach.

The proposed framework addresses commonalities and has plugins that can address each gateway’s specific features, and can adapt in the future as new gateways and gateway features are introduced. We are constantly expanding the options to meet your needs. Even if you have a unique use case, don’t hesitate to get in touch: our experts can provide suggestions and we can work on a custom solution.

We have the building blocks, you bring the requirements.

Are you interested in our solution and want to discuss how we can help? Contact us, and we can talk about your specific case.


Webinar recording (Video)

Dezső Biczó (Pronovix's CTO) and Christoph Weber (Pronovix's Solutions Architect) explained how to handle a complex system with multiple API gateways and how to apply federated API management. We are happy to share the recording with you so you can learn more and see an insightful demo.


Suggested Readings

 

All Pronovix publications are the fruit of a team effort, enabled by the research and collective knowledge of the entire Pronovix team. Our ideas and experiences are greatly shaped by our clients and the communities we participate in.

Dezső is the Chief Technology Officer at Pronovix. He wanted to have a computer from a very young age — not for playing games, but to do programming and other cool stuff. He started learning web programming at high school where he met his mentor László Csécsy (boobaa) who introduced him to Drupal. He earned a BSc degree in Bachelor of Business Information Technology and later an MSc degree in Software Engineering at the University of Szeged in Hungary. Thanks to his enthusiasm for computers and programming he is always ready to improve his skills, and can quickly learn new languages and technologies.

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