Why put a gateway in front?

Kong Course · lesson 1 of 15 · 3 min read

Ten services each solving auth, rate limits and logging their own way is the problem Kong fixes.

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Key points

  • Without a gateway, every service re-implements auth, rate limiting, CORS and logging - differently.
  • Fixing a security bug then means editing and redeploying ten codebases.
  • A gateway is a single front door: cross-cutting concerns move out of your services and into config.
  • Your services get simpler, because they stop caring who the caller is or how often they call.
  • The trade: the gateway becomes critical infrastructure, so it must be highly available.

A gateway moves cross-cutting concerns out of every service and into one place you can change.

Services and Routes

This is a reading copy. The full lesson — with the visual explainer, the interactive lab and a Run button for the code — lives in the Kong Course course, and every lesson in it is listed on the Kong Course contents page.