API Management with AWS API Gateway in .NET Microservices: Product and Order Services

3 min readAug 1, 2024

API Management is a critical component in microservices architecture, providing a centralized point to manage, secure, and monitor APIs. AWS API Gateway offers a powerful solution for managing APIs, making it easier to control access, monitor traffic, and secure communication between clients and services. This blog will guide you through integrating AWS API Gateway with two .NET microservices: Product and Order services, demonstrating the process with code snippets and configurations.

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Introduction to AWS API Gateway

AWS API Gateway is a fully managed service that allows developers to create, publish, maintain, monitor, and secure APIs at any scale. It serves as a front door for applications, providing a unified interface to access backend services.

Key Features:

Security: Support for IAM permissions, API keys, and custom authorizers.
Monitoring: Integration with CloudWatch for metrics and logs.
Traffic Control: Rate limiting, throttling, and quotas.

Setting Up the Environment

Prerequisites:

AWS account with necessary permissions.
AWS CLI installed and configured.
.NET SDK (6.0 or later) installed.
Product and Order microservices implemented.

Deploying .NET Microservices

First, deploy your .NET microservices (Product and Order) to a platform like AWS ECS, EC2, or Elastic Beanstalk. For demonstration purposes, we’ll assume the services are deployed and accessible:

Product Service: https://product-service.example.com
Order Service: https://order-service.example.com

Creating an API Gateway

To create and set up an API Gateway:

Login to AWS Management Console and navigate to the API Gateway service.
Create a new REST API and name it ProductOrderAPI.

Defining Resources and Methods

Define resources and HTTP methods in API Gateway to represent your microservices endpoints.

Creating Resources:

Product Resource:

Path: /products
Method: GET
Integration Type: HTTP
Endpoint URL: https://product-service.example.com/products

Order Resource:

Path: /orders
Method: POST
Integration Type: HTTP
Endpoint URL: https://order-service.example.com/orders

{
  "type": "HTTP",
  "httpMethod": "GET",
  "uri": "https://product-service.example.com/products",
  "requestParameters": {},
  "requestTemplates": {},
  "responseTemplates": {}
}

Configuring Security

API Gateway Security Options:

API Keys: Require clients to pass an API key with each request.
IAM Permissions: Use AWS IAM roles and policies for access control.
Custom Authorizers: Implement custom logic for authentication.

For simplicity, we’ll use API Keys:

In the API Gateway console, go to API Keys and Create API Key.
Associate the key with a Usage Plan.

[HttpGet("products")]
[Authorize]
public IActionResult GetProducts()
{
    // Logic to return products
}

Deploying the API

Deploy the API by creating a new deployment stage (e.g., prod).
Note the Invoke URL, such as https://api-id.execute-api.region.amazonaws.com/prod.

Testing the API

Use tools like Postman or curl to test the APIs.

Get Products:

curl -H "x-api-key: YOUR_API_KEY" https://api-id.execute-api.region.amazonaws.com/prod/products

Place Order:

curl -X POST -H "x-api-key: YOUR_API_KEY" -d '{"productId": 1, "quantity": 2}' https://api-id.execute-api.region.amazonaws.com/prod/orders

Monitoring and Analytics

CloudWatch Integration:

API Gateway integrates with CloudWatch for detailed monitoring. You can track metrics like:

Latency: Time taken to process requests.
4XX/5XX Errors: Client and server errors.
Request Count: Number of API requests.

Set up CloudWatch Alarms to get notifications for threshold breaches.

Benefits:

Centralized Management: Manage all your APIs from a single place.
Enhanced Security: Secure APIs with keys, IAM roles, and custom authorizers.
Scalability: Automatically scales to handle traffic load.
Comprehensive Monitoring: Detailed logs and metrics through CloudWatch.

Conclusion

AWS API Gateway simplifies the management of APIs in a microservices architecture by providing a unified entry point for clients. It enhances security, scalability, and observability of APIs. By following the steps outlined in this blog, you can effectively manage API access, control traffic, and secure communication in your .NET microservices environment.

API Gateway, combined with the robust features of AWS, provides a scalable and secure way to manage APIs, making it an essential component of modern microservices architecture.