ThreeMammals/Ocelot
Ocelot
Ocelot is a .NET API gateway that functions as an HTTP reverse proxy to route, balance, and secure traffic between clients and backend services. It serves as a centralized manager for incoming requests, providing a single entry point for traffic orchestration.
The project differentiates itself through dynamic request orchestration, allowing it to aggregate multiple backend service responses into a single result to minimize client network round trips. It also supports dynamic gateway configuration, enabling updates to system behavior and operational parameters without requiring a service restart.
The gateway covers broad capability areas including traffic management via weighted load balancing and rate limiting, as well as automated service discovery to resolve backend network addresses. Security is handled through token-based authentication filters and endpoint security to verify identities before requests reach internal services. Additional performance optimizations include in-memory response caching and request data transformation for headers and claims.
Features
- API Gateways - Functions as a centralized entry point to route, balance, and secure traffic between clients and backend services.
- Request Routing - Functions as an HTTP reverse proxy that maps incoming request paths to specific backend service endpoints using routing rules.
- Microservices Traffic Management - Distributes network requests across multiple server instances and manages service discovery for high availability.
- Middleware-Based Request Pipelines - Processes requests through a sequential chain of handlers to modify headers, verify identity, and enforce rate limits.
- Response Aggregators - Combines multiple downstream API responses into a single composite payload to minimize client network round trips.
- Dynamic Service Discovery - Resolves logical service names to physical network addresses by querying external service registries at runtime.
- Load Balancers - Distributes incoming traffic across multiple healthy backend instances using weighted load balancing to ensure high availability.
- .NET API Gateways - Provides a network gateway for routing, balancing, and securing traffic between clients and backend services using the .NET ecosystem.
- Service Discovery - Locates available backend service instances through automated discovery providers to resolve network addresses.
- API Access Security - Implements security layers that verify user identity and permissions before requests reach internal backend services.
- Edge Security Enforcements - Protects sensitive internal services by verifying user identities and enforcing rate limits at the network edge.
- Token-Based Authentication - Intercepts incoming requests to validate security claims and permissions using token-based authentication.
- Request Orchestration - Aggregates multiple backend service responses into a single result to minimize client network round trips.
- Response Aggregators - Provides the ability to aggregate multiple backend service responses into a single result to reduce client network round trips.
- Reverse Proxies - Acts as a proxy server that forwards client requests to backend servers to provide load balancing and caching.
- API Response Caching - Provides in-memory caching of backend network request results to reduce latency and downstream server load.
- API Response Optimizations - Reduces client round trips by merging multiple backend responses and caching data to lower latency.
- In-Memory Caches - Stores frequently accessed backend data in a local in-memory cache to reduce latency and downstream server load.
- Dynamic Configuration Managers - Provides a management interface for updating gateway behavior and operational parameters without requiring a service restart.
- Weighted Load Balancing - Distributes incoming traffic across multiple healthy backend instances using weighted load balancing.
- Traffic Routing Controllers - Modifies request headers and claims in transit to control how traffic flows between clients and backend APIs.
- Rate Limiting - Restricts the number of calls a client can make per second to protect backend services from abuse.
- API Rate Limiting - Implements rate limiting and request volume restrictions to protect backend services from abuse.
- Request and Response Transformers - Implements functions that modify claims, headers, and HTTP methods during the request transit lifecycle.
- API Frameworks and Tools - API gateway for .NET core applications.
- API Gateways - .NET-based gateway for lightweight API management.
- API Gateways and Proxies - API gateway specifically for .NET core environments.
- Distributed Computing - API gateway built specifically for modern web services.
