Managing API Load with Gateways and Service Meshes

API gateways and service meshes are critical for managing the massive load of microservices APIs. Gateways enable organizations to expose, govern, monitor, document, and onboard APIs, treating them as products. They provide controls for managing access, revoking access, capturing analytics, and creating a smooth product journey for API consumption. API gateways are particularly useful at the edge, where APIs are exposed to partners and mobile applications. On the other hand, service meshes offer a lower level network management of APIs within applications themselves. They reduce extra network hops and enable faster performance, while also providing fine-grained management and implementing features like zero trust, observability, and cross-data center failovers. The combination of both gateway and service mesh technologies is necessary to create secure, reliable, and observable APIs that can be managed at both the network and application levels.