This topic describes how to create an HTTP API, create and manage routes, and configure routing policies in the Cloud-native API Gateway console.
What is an HTTP API?
HTTP APIs work around routes based on the HTTP protocol. These APIs are used to quickly expose services in Kubernetes Ingress, microservices architecture, and AI (SSE) scenarios.
An Ingress manages externally accessible resources in a Kubernetes cluster and provides Layer-7 load balancing. Cloud-native API Gateway Ingress instances are developed based on API gateways and provide a more powerful method to manage ingress traffic. The instances are compatible with NGINX Ingress gateways and are compatible with more than 50 annotations defined in NGINX Ingress gateways. The instances are suitable for more than 90% of scenarios of NGINX Ingress gateways. The instances support canary releases of multiple service versions at the same time and provide flexible service governance capabilities and comprehensive security protection. The instances can meet requirements for traffic governance in scenarios in which a large number of cloud-native distributed applications are used.
If you do not require API-specific fine-grained management between business systems, you can configure routes to define the backend service that processes specific requests. Compared with API operations, route paths are coarse-grained, such as /user/*. This allows you to quickly configure access paths and implement interactions between systems.
HTTP APIs are mainly used by development or O&M teams, who can use routes to quickly split business logic and implement service interaction. These APIs feature high flexibility and simplify the call logic between business systems.
Create an HTTP API
HTTP API is an interface based on HTTP protocol that quickly exposes internal services of distributed systems to external users. Cloud-native API provides two methods to create HTTP APIs. For more information, see Create an HTTP API.
Routing modes
Cloud-native API Gateway supports multiple routing modes, including single-service routing, percentage-based routing, tag-based routing, mock routing, and redirection. Cloud-native API Gateway instances match received requests based on configured routing rules and the priorities of the rules. You can use the console to easily create and configure routes. For more information, see Create a route.