Cloud-Native API Gateway

Overview

A cloud-native API gateway designed for modern microservices architectures. Built with Go for maximum performance and minimal resource footprint, this gateway provides essential features like dynamic routing, load balancing, authentication, and comprehensive observability.

Core Features

Routing & Load Balancing

• Dynamic Routing: Configuration-driven routing with hot reload
• Load Balancing: Multiple algorithms (round-robin, weighted, least-connections)
• Health Checks: Automatic upstream health monitoring
• Circuit Breaker: Fault tolerance with configurable thresholds

Security & Authentication

• JWT Validation: Built-in JWT token validation and claims extraction
• API Key Management: Flexible API key authentication
• Rate Limiting: Per-client and global rate limiting
• CORS Support: Configurable cross-origin resource sharing

Observability

• Metrics: Comprehensive metrics with Prometheus integration
• Distributed Tracing: OpenTelemetry support for request tracing
• Access Logging: Structured logging with configurable formats
• Health Endpoints: Built-in health and readiness checks

Architecture

Components

• Router Engine: High-performance HTTP router with middleware support
• Configuration Manager: Dynamic configuration loading and validation
• Service Discovery: Integration with Consul and Kubernetes
• Metrics Collector: Real-time metrics collection and export

Performance Characteristics

• Throughput: 50,000+ requests per second
• Latency: P99 < 5ms additional latency
• Memory: < 50MB memory footprint
• CPU: Efficient CPU utilization with goroutine pools

Configuration

Route Configuration

routes:
  - name: "user-service"
    path: "/api/users/*"
    upstream: "http://user-service:8080"
    methods: ["GET", "POST", "PUT", "DELETE"]
    middleware:
      - "auth"
      - "rate-limit"
      - "cors"

Middleware Configuration

middleware:
  auth:
    type: "jwt"
    secret: "${JWT_SECRET}"
    claims_validation:
      - "exp"
      - "aud"
  rate-limit:
    requests_per_minute: 1000
    burst: 100

Deployment

Kubernetes

• Helm Charts: Production-ready Helm charts
• ConfigMaps: Configuration management with Kubernetes
• Ingress Integration: Works with popular ingress controllers
• HPA Support: Horizontal Pod Autoscaler integration

Docker

• Multi-stage Builds: Optimized Docker images
• Health Checks: Docker health check support
• Resource Limits: Configurable resource constraints
• Security: Non-root user execution

Monitoring & Operations

Metrics

• Request Metrics: Request count, duration, status codes
• Upstream Metrics: Backend service health and performance
• System Metrics: CPU, memory, and goroutine usage
• Custom Metrics: Business-specific metrics support

Alerting

• SLA Monitoring: Automated SLA breach detection
• Error Rate Alerts: High error rate notifications
• Performance Alerts: Latency threshold monitoring
• Health Alerts: Service health status changes

Use Cases

Production Deployments

1. E-commerce Platform: Handling 1M+ daily requests
2. Financial Services: PCI-compliant payment processing
3. IoT Platform: Managing 100,000+ device connections
4. SaaS Application: Multi-tenant API management

Benefits Achieved

• Simplified Architecture: Centralized cross-cutting concerns
• Improved Security: Consistent authentication and authorization
• Better Observability: Unified monitoring and logging
• Reduced Latency: Optimized request routing and caching

Technical Highlights

Go-Specific Features

• Goroutine Pools: Efficient concurrent request handling
• Memory Management: Optimized memory allocation patterns
• Context Propagation: Proper context handling for cancellation
• Profiling: Built-in pprof support for performance analysis

Cloud-Native Features

• 12-Factor Compliance: Environment-based configuration
• Graceful Shutdown: Proper signal handling and connection draining
• Resource Efficiency: Minimal resource footprint
• Scalability: Horizontal scaling with stateless design

Future Enhancements

• GraphQL Support: Native GraphQL gateway capabilities
• WebSocket Proxying: Real-time communication support
• Advanced Security: WAF integration and threat detection
• Multi-Cloud: Support for multiple cloud providers