In this blog post series, we have discussed how Kubernetes enhances a container-based microservices architecture. We examine the rise of containers and Kubernetes to understand the organizational and technical advantages of each, including a deep dive into the ways Kubernetes can improve processes for deploying, scaling and managing containerized applications. The first in the series covered Next-Generation Application Development. The second covered the Next Frontier: Container Orchestration.

From the modern application platform perspective, products should allow architects and DevOps teams to support dynamic topologies. That means a multi-platform capability is required but not sufficient. In fact, for several reasons, companies are looking for hybrid deployments to run their applications on several platforms simultaneously. Moreover, the topology should support and adjust for new and continuous architecture changes.

In February 2021, we announced the GA of Kong Konnect, the first cloud native service connectivity platform that gives organizations the flexibility of protecting their API and service traffic while simultaneously taking advantage of 10x ops improvements via the cloud control plane.

Ready to speed up your Kong Lua custom plugin development process? Before diving into this post, make sure you’re familiar with the basics of plugin development and have gone through the basics described in our Kong documentation.

Kubernetes is hard. Last year, we started the developer experience product at American Airlines. As we transitioned into the later half of 2020 and into 2021, we wanted to tackle Kubernetes app deployments. We aimed to make it easy for the users to do the right things, no matter how difficult those tasks were. Through our Kubernetes journey, we created reproducible patterns for application teams to use to make things even easier.

In this episode of Kongcast, I went all-in on PHP, Laravel and PHP developer tools with Freek Van der Herten, a backend developer at Spatie. Then, Freek demoed his new PHP debugging tool: Ray. Check out the transcript and video from our conversation below, and be sure to subscribe to get email alerts for the latest new episodes.

Like many developers and operations professionals, you may have had complicated experiences with security and certificates (encryption of the connection and authentication). Maybe so much so that you try to avoid working on them whenever possible. If you’re looking for a simpler way, Kong may be the answer. As with everything with Kong, the idea is to make things as lightweight as possible, including the complexity of setting up and maintaining certificate-based security.

In Part 1 of this blog series, I broke down the “two generals problem” and shared how it affects IT leaders today. In this post, I will share the details of a specific battle from more modern history that exemplifies this concept.

“DevOps” merges Development and Operations team functions through practices and tooling, all the while making continuous improvements to applications. Teams that adopt DevOps tools, culture and practices perform better and build faster. Let’s walk through each stage of DevOps and the popular DevOps tools you may want to consider in 2022.

The Two Generals’ Problem is a well-known thought experiment about how asynchronous – and potentially unreliable – communications can cause, shall we say, issues. These great generals from history are facing a cunning and capable enemy. Think of someone like Khalid ibn al-Walid, Napoleon, Erwin Rommel or Sun Tzu. If the generals attack together, they will win. If they attack separately, they will lose. The problem is that they are communicating over an unreliable and slow medium.

Application programming interfaces (APIs) are fast becoming the global standard for automated data exchange between and within companies. When a company first launches APIs, an adjacent step is to set up an effective system for automating API planning and implementation. But beyond that, as companies grow and expand their API use, the central challenge becomes figuring out how to best position APIs for scale as multiple, distributed teams build APIs across business units, often around the world.

In this episode of Kongcast, I spoke with Grant McKeen and Jonathan White from IntegrationWorks about how open banking and BIAN (Banking Industry Architecture Network) work with Kong Gateway to create simplicity from complexity in the banking and financial services industry. Check out the transcript and video from our conversation below, and be sure to subscribe to get email alerts for the latest new episodes.

Microservices have an entirely new set of problems due to their distributed service-oriented architecture. As a result, microservice design patterns have surfaced. This post will consider the specific design patterns that can help us build reliable, secure and traceable microservices.

Here’s a story about a developer surviving in a world of APIs, Kubernetes and rapid application modernization. Meet Josh (a pseudonym). Josh is your typical developer. He’s good at writing code in his native language, hates documentation and REALLY hates the “drag and drop” approach to developing software found in bloated API management platforms. Josh would rather write code, weave in some docs and avoid worrying about security, networking, deployment and reliability.

In our last blog, we discussed the connectivity solution – Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) which was a preferred method for connecting monolithic applications. In this blog, we will discuss the role of an API gateway in today’s modern distributed world. We’ll also compare ESBs with API gateways and discuss how these connectivity solutions can co-exist to support both legacy and modern applications.