API Gateway : Introduction
  

Introduction

The API Gateway is an external open source MIT license middle-ware, enabling end users, apps and web pages to connect to Orchestra in a controlled and secure way, limiting the load on Orchestra, even for a large number of users. It can be seen as a front door for all requests from external devices and web sites to the Orchestra Central server, thus removing the need to expose the Central Orchestra server to internet. For this purpose, the API Gateway uses a Netflix module called Zuul.
It is not recommended to use the API Gateway for communication between internal applications.
The API Gateway can be used, for example, for geo-location attributes to locate available Branches and information about the Services that each Branch provides. Also, it is possible to get information about how many people that are waiting in line for each Service, at each Branch, and finally to take a ticket on a suitable Branch/Service.
The API Gateway can be deployed at the customer’s DMZ, or on an Orchestra server for evaluation purposes.

1.1.1. Prerequisites

One of the following Orchestra versions is required for API Gateway to work correctly:
Orchestra 6.1: build number 3.1.0.489, or later.
Orchestra 6.0: build number 3.0.0.537, or later.

1.1.2. Server Specifications

The recommended server setup for a standalone setup, with high load is:
7 Gbyte RAM
4 core CPU system
Windows Server

1.1.3. Licensing

Since API Gateway uses a number of connectors in Orchestra, you need to make sure that you have bought a correct Orchestra license, depending on how you want to use API Gateway.
For more information, see the Order and Orchestra sections on Qmatic World.

1.1.4. Version Handling

The API Gateway has a version number that consists of four digits, for example 1.3.4.0.
The version number is built up of the following components:
<major>.<minor>.<bug>.<customisation>
This means that if you create a customised version, you should increase the fourth digit of the version number, for example making it 1.3.4.1. This would be very helpful for the Support organisation, should you run into any problems with the API Gateway.

1.1.5. Recommended Setup Order

The recommended order of setting up API Gateway is as follows:
1. Installation
2. General Configuration
3. Configuration in application.yml
4. Perform a trial REST call through the API Gateway