AWS simplifies API Gateway for Cloud Developers Amazon Web Services Inc. (AWS), yesterday announced improvements to its Amazon API Gateway, which will make API-based development easier in its cloud platform. The Amazon API Gateway is used to create and manage scalable backends for mobile, web, and other apps. It was presented last year at an AWS Summit along with other services. Like popular Mobile Back-End-as-a-Service (MBaaS) offerings, it provides infrastructure services such as authorization, access control, traffic management, monitoring, analytics and version management. The Amazon API Gateway service is fully managed and makes it easy to publish, manage, monitor, secure, and maintain APIs at any scale. With a few clicks in the AWS Management Console, you can create an API that acts as a ‘front door’ for applications to access data, business logic, or functionality from your back-end services, such as workloads running on Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2), code running on AWS Lambda or any Web application.Yesterday, Barr outlined enhancements to the API gateway. Barr stated that API Gateway is expanding its integration model with new features that will make it easier to create API endpoints and port existing applications. Barr provided quick summaries of each feature before we get into the details.

• Catch-all Path Variables — Rather than specifying individual paths or behaviors for groups of requests falling within a common path (such /store/), it is now possible to specify a catch all route that intercepts all requests and routes them to the exact same function. For example a single greedy path (/store/proxy+) will intercept requests made to /store/list-products, /store/add-product and /store/delete-product.
• Any Method — Instead of specifying different behaviors for each HTTP method (GET/POST/PUT, etc.), you can now use catch-all ANY method for the same integration behavior for all requests.
• Lambda Function Integration — This new default mapping template will send all of your request to your Lambda functions and then convert the return value into an HTTP reply.
• HTTP Endpoint Integration — A new default mapping template that will pass the entire request to your HTTP endpoint, and then return the response with no modifications. This allows API Gateway to be used as an HTTP proxy without any setup.

Barr also provided a glossary of terms for the uninitiated to help them understand the new features.

• Endpoint — A URL provided by API Gateway that responds to HTTP requests. These requests use HTTP methods like GET, PUT, and POST.
• Resource — A named entity that exists symbolically within an endpoint. Referred to as a hierarchical path.
• Behavior — The action your code will take to respond to an HTTP request for a resource using an HTTP method.
• Integration — The API Gateway mapping between the endpoint, resource, and HTTP method to the actual behavior and back.

Pay-as-you go customers can access the new features at no additional cost. Learn more about the Amazon API Gateway Developer Guide for developers.