Microservices

Manage Microservices

In comparison to a monolithic architecture, where all processes are tightly coupled and run as a single service, a microservices architecture structures an application as a collection of services that are loosely coupled and independently deployable. The microservices architecture enables the rapid, frequent, and reliable delivery of large, complex applications. Each component service in a microservices architecture can be developed, deployed, operated, and scaled without affecting the functioning of other services.

The adoption of the microservices architecture pattern drives the need for lightweight gateways or microgateways. webMethods Microgateway gives control over a microservice landscape by enforcing policies that perform authentication, traffic monitoring, and traffic management. The lightweight nature of a Microgateway allows a flexible deployment to avoid gaps or bottlenecks in policy enforcement.

Businesses are adopting microservices for agility and scalability. In managing the complexity of distributed microservices environments, the microservices architecture might run into operational challenges, such as service discovery, connectivity, security, and fault tolerance. This is where a service mesh helps in providing critical capabilities that provide a solution to the operational challenges you face. webMethods AppMesh is just such a solution that allows you to apply an application context to service mesh or microservice deployments.

The following sections describe how API Gateway facilitates management of deployed Microgateways and configuration of the AppMesh infratructure to manage microservices.

Microgateways

API Gateway enables you to monitor the Microgateways that are connected to it. You can view the active APIs and detailed analytics for each Microgateway that is connected to the API Gateway.

The Microgateways management page displays all the Microgateway groups that are connected to the API Gateway. A Microgateway group enables you to group Microgateways that have some common element, such as domain (finance or human resources) or type of APIs (external-facing or internal use). For each Microgateway group, the Microgateways management page displays the following information:

• Name and Description of the Microgateway group.

• The number of Microgateways that are part of the group.

• The number of APIs that are available in that group.

You can perform the following operation on this page:

• Click View details to view more information about a Microgateway group.

• Click Analytics to view the Analytics tab of Microgateway group. For information on Microgateway Analytics, see Microgateway Group Analytics

Microgateway Groups

A Microgateway group is a collection of Microgateway instances that are grouped based on a common domain or API type. The Microgateway groups page displays the available groups and the Microgateways that are included in a particular group. The page displays the following information for each Microgateway group:

Basic information section includes

• Name of the group

• Description

• Number of APIs in the group

Microgateways section includes the following details of each Microgateway instance in the group: * Host name

• HTTP and HTTPS ports that the Microgateway uses to expose the APIs that are provisioned on it

• A description of the Microgateway

• The number of APIs available on the Microgateway

To add a Microgateway to the group, you need to add the following information to the custom-settings.yml file:

microgatewayPool:
microgatewayPoolName: *poolNameHere*
microgatewayPoolDescription: *poolDescriptionHere*

Where poolNameHere is the name of the group and poolDescriptionHere is an optional description of the group. If a poolNameHere is not provided, the Microgateway is added to the Default group.

You can perform the following operations on this page:

• Click to remove a Microgateway from the group. For information on deleting multiple instances, see Deleting Microgateway Instances.

• Click the Microgateway name to view more information about it.

Microgateway Group Analytics

The Microgateway Group Analytics tab displays detailed analytics based on the data cumulatively received from the Microgateways in a group. This tab displays the following information:

• Overall events: Displays a pie chart that lists different events being monitored. Each of these event categories is depicted with different colors.

• Application Activity: Displays a pie chart to indicate activities based on applications. You can view the number of APIs that are authorized with applications and the number of APIs that are not authorized using any applications.

• API Invocation: Displays a pie chart to indicate the number of invocations made to each API present in the group.

• Runtime events: Displays the run time event details such as time when the event was generated, API Name, the application that generated the event, event type, description of the alert generated due to the event, status, and the source of event.

• Payload size: Displays the payload size of the request and responses during data transfer in the specified time. This data is picked up from the transactional event that is triggered when a log invocation policy is applied to the API.

You can perform the following operations on this page:

• Apply filters: The Analytics tab provides filters that you can use to view selective data or events. You can use the displayed duration filter and add a custom filters using the filter query builder.

  • To apply a duration filter, select the time interval from the drop-down list, and click Apply filter to filter the analytics based on the time interval chosen. To specify a custom duration, select Custom from the drop-down list, enter the required From Date and To Date values, and click Apply filter.

  • You can also add filters based on a filter query. To add a filter based on a filter query, click Add a filter; enter the desired field, operator, and value; and click Save.

• View specific events: You can also click on the specific event in the list under Legend to view the specific event in any of the widgets. You can view additional details for an event by hovering the cursor over a particular color in the graphical representations.

Microgateway Details

The Microgateway details page provides information about a particular Microgateway.

The Microgateway Info tab includes two sub-tabs:

• The Basic information tab provides information about the Microgateway

• The APIs tab lists the APIs provisioned on that Microgateway. Clicking an API opens the API details page. The active Microgateway endpoints of the API are also displayed in the API details page.

You can perform the following operations on this page:

• Click an API to view the API details.

• Click Analytics to view analytics based on the data received from an individual Microgateway. The tab includes the following analytic graphs:

  • Overall events
  • Application activity
  • Runtime events
  • Payload size

• Similar to the Microgateway Group Analytics tab, you can apply required filters and view specific events. For more information on the widgets and instructions to view graphs, see Microgateway Group Analytics.

Deleting Microgateway Instances

When you stop a Microgateway instance, the instance will be deleted from API Gateway automatically. But, if an Microgateway stops abruptly, the corresponding instance remains stale in API Gateway. You can remove such stale instances by deleting them.

You can delete one Microgateway or multiple instances from a Microgateway group at the same time.

Deleting a Microgateway

To delete a Microgateway:

1. Click Microgateways in the title navigation bar.

2. Click the required Microgateway group.
   The Microgateway group details appears.

3. From the Microgateways section, click next to the required Microgateway.
   A warning message appears.

4. Click Yes to delete.
   The Microgateway Analytics tab displays detailed analytics based on the data received from the Microgateway. This tab displays the following information:

Deleting Multiple Microgateways

To delete multiple Microgateways:

1. Click Microgateways in the title navigation bar.

2. Click the required Microgateway group.
   The Microgateway group details appears.

3. From the Microgateways section, select the Microgateways that you want to delete by selecting the check boxes next to the required host names.

4. Click and select Delete from the drop-down list. A warning message appears.

5. Click Yes to delete the selected Microgateways. The selected Microgateways are deleted and the Delete Microgateways report appears.

6. Click Download the delete report here to download the report. The report displays the following details of the deleted Microgateways.

   • Host name
   • HTTP or HTTPS port name
   • Status