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What are the caching strategies of API Gateway?

Created on 2025-02-24 15:25:13
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Caching strategies of API Gateway are crucial for optimizing performance by reducing latency and the load on backend services. Here are some common caching strategies:

  1. Time-To-Live (TTL) Caching: This strategy involves setting a TTL value for cached responses. The API Gateway caches the response for the specified duration. After the TTL expires, the gateway fetches a fresh response from the backend. For example, if a response has a TTL of 300 seconds, it remains in the cache for up to 5 minutes.

  2. Client-Specific Caching: This strategy allows different clients to receive cached responses based on their unique identifiers, such as API keys or user IDs. This ensures that each client gets the most relevant and up-to-date data.

  3. Query Parameter Caching: This strategy takes into account the query parameters in the API request. Responses are cached based on the specific combination of query parameters, ensuring that different requests with different parameters get distinct cached responses.

  4. Stale-While-Revalidate Caching: In this strategy, the API Gateway serves a stale cached response while asynchronously revalidating it with the backend. This minimizes the delay for the client while ensuring that the cache is updated.

  5. Cache Invalidation: This strategy involves manually or automatically invalidating cached responses when the data changes. This ensures that clients always receive the most accurate and up-to-date information.

For example, in a scenario where an e-commerce platform uses an API Gateway to fetch product details, a TTL caching strategy with a TTL of 10 minutes can be used. This means that if multiple users request the same product details within 10 minutes, the API Gateway can serve the cached response, reducing the load on the backend database and improving response times.

In the context of cloud services, platforms like Tencent Cloud offer API Gateway services with robust caching capabilities. Tencent Cloud's API Gateway allows you to configure caching based on various parameters, including TTL, to optimize the performance of your APIs.