API Gateway Creation

Overview

Creating an API Gateway is the first step to exposing and managing APIs through the APIM system. In real production environments like APIM’s infrastructure, the Gateway setup must consider scaling, traffic distribution, log forwarding, and DNS mapping. This tutorial guides you through creating a production-grade gateway configured by an example case.

Prerequisites

Ensure the following before you begin:

• You have Administrator access to the APIM Console.
• A Project has been created (e.g., pj-test-01).

Step-by-Step Tutorial

Step 1. Access the Gateway Creation Page

• Log into the APIM Console.
• Select project: pj-test-01.
• Navigate to Gateway Management.
• Click the Create Gateway button.

Step 2. Gateway Information

Field	Value
Gateway Type	kong
Gateway Name	gateway-prod-mj
Gateway Instance Name	Auto-filled as gateway-prod-mj
Description	A gateway to test the gateway creation process
Tags	test, kr (can add more tags to categorize gateway)

Step 3. Resource Configuration

Gateway Pod Resource

Resource	Value
CPU	1000m
Memory	1000Mi

Database Resource

Resource	Value
CPU	1000m
Memory	1000Mi

Use the slider to change the values

Step 4. Deployment Settings

Field	Value
Gateway Autoscaling	Enabled (toggle on) Min Replicas: 1 Max Replicas: 5 CPU: 50 Memory: 50 Can input or use slider to change the value
Kong Namespace	mj-test
Kong Storage Class	gp2
Storage Capacity	5 Gi
Kong Proxy Service Type	LoadBalancer
Kong Proxy Service NodePort	30001

Step 5. Affinity Settings

Enable Affinity and configure:

Key	Value
topology.kubernetes.io/zone	ap-northeast-2

This ensures gateway pods are scheduled only in specific availability zones.

Step 6. Toleration Settings

Enable Toleration and add:

Operator	Key	Value
Equal	spot	true
Exists	critical

This allows gateway pods to be scheduled onto nodes with taints such as spot=true or critical.

Step 7. Topology Spread Configuration

Field	Value
Max Skew	1
When Unsatisfiable	DoNotSchedule

Ensures gateway pods are evenly spread across zones and avoids unsatisfiable scheduling.

Step 8. System Add-ons

Component	Setting
Inner Redis	Enabled
Fluent Bit	Enabled OpenTelemetry: Enabled Elasticsearch: Disabled

Enabling Fluent Bit helps centralize gateway logs in your observability pipeline.

Step 9. Kong Configuration

Enter the following JSON:

{
  "upstream_keepalive_idle_timeout": 60,
  "upstream_keepalive_max_requests": 100000,
  "nginx_http_keepalive_requests": 100000,
  "upstream_keepalive_pool_size": 1024
}

These values optimize upstream connection reuse and help in high-performance environments.

Step 10. Create the Gateway

• Click the Create Gateway button at the bottom.

• Go to the gateway detail page and verify the gateway created.

Best Practices

• Use environmental suffixes in names: gateway-dev, gateway-staging, gateway-prod.
• Define dedicated namespaces per environment for clean resource separation.
• Keep Autoscaling off unless you have metrics-based triggers.
• Use Affinity and Topology Spread together to achieve high availability.
• Document and version your Kong Configuration JSON for audit and rollback.