AWS offers API Gateway for back-ends in the cloud

Amazon Web Services has launched a fully-managed service that allows customers to create, publish and manage application programming interfaces (APIs) without having to deploy any infrastructure.

The Amazon API Gateway lets developers build scalable APIs that run on the AWS serverless Lambda platform (which executes code directly), on its Elastic Compute Cloud, or on services hosted outside the cloud provider.

AWS is targeting developers who want to quickly build and run application back-ends but don't have the resources or ability to deal with the complexities involved in building and maintaining the necessary infrastructure.

Source: AWS

The company is promising quick and easy ways to define, revise, deploy and monitor the APIs without specialised knowledge or skills. Developers can also generate software development kits for Javascript, Apple iOS and Google Android without the need to code.

Amazon is also touting the API Gateway as a tool for wrapping around and modernising legacy systems that use remote procedure calls for web services, by aggregating the results of the services into a single response.

While the API Gateway integrates with other AWS offerings such as CloudFront, it also pulls users deeper into the company's cloud and does not offer a migration method to move away from the service.

The service will initially be available in the United States East (Northern Virginia) and West (Oregon) AWS regions, as well as its EU region in Ireland.

AWS charges US$3.50 per million received API calls, with data charges added on top. These start at US$0.09 per gigabyte for the first 10 terabytes of outward-bound data transfers, dropping to US$0.85, US$0.07 and US$0.05/GB for the next 40TB, 100TB and 350TB respectively.

Cache memory for better overall performance and speedier API execution is also available. Pricing starts at US$0.02 per hour for 0.5GB, going to US$3.80/hr for 237GB maximum.