In this New Stack Makers podcast, Mike Stefaniak, senior product manager at NGINX and Kate Osborn, a software engineer at NGINX discusses challenges associated with network ingress in Kubernetes clusters and introduces the Kubernetes Gateway API as a solution. Stefaniak highlights the issues that arise when multiple teams work on the same ingress, leading to friction and incidents. NGINX has also introduced the NGINX Gateway Fabric, implementing the Kubernetes Gateway API as an alternative to network ingress. 

The Kubernetes Gateway API, proposed four years ago and recently made generally available, offers advantages such as extensibility. It allows referencing policies with custom resource definitions for better validation, avoiding the need for annotations. Each resource has an associated role, enabling clean application of role-based access control policies for enhanced security.

While network ingress is prevalent and mature, the Kubernetes Gateway API is expected to find adoption in greenfield projects initially. It has the potential to unite North-South and East-West traffic, offering a role-oriented API for comprehensive control over cluster traffic. The article encourages exploring the Kubernetes Gateway API and engaging with the community to contribute to its development.

Learn more from The New Stack about NGINX and the open source Kubernetes Gateway API:

Kubernetes API Gateway 1.0 Goes Live, as Maintainers Plan for The Future 

API Gateway, Ingress Controller or Service Mesh: When to Use What and Why 

Ingress Controllers or the Kubernetes Gateway API? Which is Right for You? 

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