apisix-ingress-controller VS gateway-api

This post shows how to implement it with Apache APISIX.

APISIX Ingress Controller is a tool focused on API management, offering high performance and flexible configuration options. If you require more complex routing rules, rate limiting, circuit breaking, and other advanced features, APISIX Ingress Controller may be a better choice. It provides a rich plugin system, allowing integration of plugins through APISIX Ingress CRD using declarative configuration to handle authentication, authorization, monitoring, logging, and other functionalities. This enriches the capabilities of APISIX Ingress Controller and simplifies configuration.

In this post, I'd like to describe how to fix some of them via the Apache APISIX API Gateway.

In the era of digitization, the availability and stability of services are crucial for the success of enterprises. As a key component of microservices architecture, the API gateway plays a significant role. APISIX, an open-source API gateway platform, ensures the continuity and stability of services through its health check mechanism.

Next February will mark the two-year milestone that I'm working for: API7.ai on Apache APISIX. I'm still very pleased about both. It allows me to do things I like a lot, such as writing posts and giving talks.

In early 2021, I started to work on the Apache APISIX project. I have to admit that I had never heard about it before. In this post, I'd like to introduce some Apache projects that are less well-known than HTTPD or Kafka.

Apache APISIX is an API Gateway, which builds upon the OpenResty reverse-proxy to offer a plugin-based architecture. The main benefit of such an architecture is that it brings structure to the configuration of routes. It's a help at scale, when managing hundreds or thousands of routes.

API resilience is about building robust APIs that can withstand a variety of challenges, ensuring that they continue to function effectively. API Gateways play a key role in this, acting as the entry point for external requests and managing the communication between different services by taking into account common API resilience patterns. One of the popular open-source API Gateways, Apache APISIX, provides a variety of features to enhance the resilience and robustness of APIs. In this article, we will explore 10 common API resilience design patterns and how they can be implemented using APISIX.

# cilium/playbook.yml - name: Bootstrap the Kubernetes cluster hosts: localhost gather_facts: false become: true environment: KUBECONFIG: ~/.kube/config vars: helm_version: v3.14.4 kube_context: k3d-k3s-default tasks: - name: Install Kubernetes library ansible.builtin.pip: name: kubernetes<30 state: present - name: Install helm binary ansible.builtin.shell: cmd: "{{ lookup('ansible.builtin.url', 'https://git.io/get_helm.sh', split_lines=false) }}" creates: /usr/local/bin/helm environment: DESIRED_VERSION: "{{ helm_version }}" - name: Install Kubernetes gateway CRDs kubernetes.core.k8s: src: "{{ item }}" state: present context: "{{ kube_context }}" loop: - https://github.com/kubernetes-sigs/gateway-api/releases/download/v1.0.0/standard-install.yaml - https://github.com/kubernetes-sigs/gateway-api/releases/download/v1.0.0/experimental-install.yaml - name: Install cilium block: - name: Add cilium helm repository kubernetes.core.helm_repository: name: cilium repo_url: https://helm.cilium.io - name: Install cilium helm release kubernetes.core.helm: name: cilium chart_ref: cilium/cilium namespace: kube-system state: present chart_version: 1.15.x kube_context: "{{ kube_context }}" values: gatewayAPI: enabled: true kubeProxyReplacement: true encryption: enabled: true type: wireguard operator: replicas: 1

It has already been a couple of years since the Kubernetes Ingress was defined as a “frozen” feature while further development will be added to the Gateway API.

Kubernetes provides two APIs to achieve this, the Ingress API and the Gateway API.

With all that said, K8s is not really meant to function as an API gateway to arbitrary services. You should look into API gateways such as NGINX, Kong or others, service meshes as others have already pointed out, or have a look at the K8s Gateway API the SIG is currently working on. The last one is in the early stages of adoption, but it could provide you with a nice way to do an API Gateway right in K8s.

Maybe there's something in the new fangled gateways.

Keep an eye on the Gateway API GAMMA Initiative as it is currently evolving with the goal of streamlining how services meshes can implement the Gateway API and reduce some overlap.

The selling point for me was ability to configure it using Kubernetes CRD's and future support of the Gateway API (under development - <https://gateway-api.sigs.k8s.io/>).

Developers can version their API now within helm charts or even yaml templates held along the code in their repositories.

-- https://gateway-api.sigs.k8s.io

While you're learning about ingresses, also look into the k8s Gateway API, which is the next generation. https://gateway-api.sigs.k8s.io/