Gateway types
IBM® API Connect provides the different types of gateways for use with your deployment.
DataPower API Gateway
The DataPower® API Gateway has been designed with APIs in mind, and with the same security focus as DataPower Gateway (v5 compatible). Where DataPower Gateway (v5 compatible) was built for flexibility, DataPower API Gateway is built specifically for the API use case, with resulting performance benefits.
DataPower API Gateway was built and optimized for the cloud. Use this gateway if you are running applications in a public or private cloud and want to expose them as APIs.
DataPower Gateway (v5 compatible)
DataPower Gateway (v5 compatible) provides compatibility with the IBM DataPower Gateway that was provided with IBM API Connect Version 5 and earlier releases.
Consider using DataPower Gateway (v5 compatible) if you are an existing DataPower user and want to utilize your DataPower resources and knowledge.
DataPower gateway comparison
The following table compares support for features between the gateway types. For v5-compatible features and policies that are not supported in DataPower API Gateway, you can use the API Connect Migration Utility (AMU) to migrate them to an API Gateway-compatible format. For more information, see Migrating a Version 5 deployment .
| Feature | DataPower Gateway (v5 compatible) | DataPower API Gateway |
|---|---|---|
| Native policies | No | Yes |
| OAuth provider | Full OAuth 2.0 Support | Full OAuth 2.0 Support |
| OAuth policy | No | Yes |
| OpenID Connect | Supported through a template | Supported natively |
| Invoke policy | Yes | Yes |
| Custom policies | Yes | Yes |
| Conditional policies | if, operation-switch, switch | switch |
| Activity logging | Implicitly executed at the end of API assembly | Configured in the API design, outside of the API assembly. |
| GatewayScript | Yes | Yes |
| Parse policy (threat detection) | No | Yes |
| Gateway extensions | Yes | Yes |
| Support for mutual TLS (mTLS) | Yes | Yes |
- For v5-compatible gateways and v5 compatibility for APIs created for the API Gateway, see GatewayScript code examples and XSLT policy examples.
- For DataPower API Gateway, see Using context variables in GatewayScript and XSLT policies with the DataPower API Gateway.
Event Gateway
Event Endpoint Management provides the capability to describe and catalog your Kafka topics as event sources, and to grant access to application developers within the organization. Application developers can discover event endpoints and configure their applications to access them through the event gateway. With Event Endpoint Management, developers can control access to the event endpoints, and also control what data can be produced to them or consumed from them.
For more information on Event Endpoint Management, see the Event Endpoint Management introduction in the IBM Event Automation documentation.