NGINX as an API gateway
Huotari, Hermanni (2025)
Julkaisun pysyvä osoite on
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:amk-202503265010
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:amk-202503265010
Tiivistelmä
API gateways play a crucial role in modern software architectures by managing API traffic, enforcing security policies, and optimizing performance. This thesis examines the use of NGINX as an API gateway, highlighting its capabilities in request routing, load balancing, caching, rate limiting, authentication, and logging. The study was conducted to evaluate how NGINX Open Source can be configured to perform these functions and assess its effectiveness in API traffic management.
The theoretical background covers API management concepts, the role of API gateways, and the advantages of using NGINX in this context. A practical approach was taken to demonstrate key API gateway functionalities through NGINX configuration and testing. Each feature was configured individually and verified by sending requests, analyzing responses, logs, and performance.
The results showed that NGINX effectively routes requests, balances load across backend servers, caches responses to improve performance, enforces rate limits, and secures access with authentication. Multiple logging configurations were tested to capture different levels of request and error details. The findings confirmed that NGINX provides a flexible and lightweight solution for API gateway functionalities, though it requires detailed and hands-on tuning of the feature-specific configurations.
The theoretical background covers API management concepts, the role of API gateways, and the advantages of using NGINX in this context. A practical approach was taken to demonstrate key API gateway functionalities through NGINX configuration and testing. Each feature was configured individually and verified by sending requests, analyzing responses, logs, and performance.
The results showed that NGINX effectively routes requests, balances load across backend servers, caches responses to improve performance, enforces rate limits, and secures access with authentication. Multiple logging configurations were tested to capture different levels of request and error details. The findings confirmed that NGINX provides a flexible and lightweight solution for API gateway functionalities, though it requires detailed and hands-on tuning of the feature-specific configurations.