AWS Just Simplified API Architecture: Direct API Gateway to Private ALB Integration
What Changed?
Previously, if you wanted to connect API Gateway to a private ALB, you had to use this setup:
API Gateway → NLB → ALB → Your Services
Now, with VPC Link v2 support for REST APIs, you can do this:
API Gateway → ALB → Your Services
That's it. No intermediary NLB required.
Why This Matters
Simpler Architecture: One less component to provision, configure, and monitor. Your infrastructure becomes cleaner and easier to understand.
Lower Costs: You immediately eliminate NLB hourly charges and Network Load Balancer Capacity Unit (NLCU) costs. For teams running multiple environments or APIs, this can save thousands of dollars annually.
Better Performance: Fewer network hops mean reduced latency. Traffic flows directly from API Gateway to your ALB within the AWS network, making your APIs faster and more efficient.
Cleaner Routing for Microservices: With direct ALB integration, you can leverage layer-7 routing capabilities more efficiently, making it easier to route to different microservices based on paths, headers, and HTTP methods.
Who Benefits Most?
This update is particularly valuable if you're running:
- Microservices on Amazon ECS or EKS: Securely expose your containerized services without making your ALB public- - Multiple microservices behind ALBs: A single VPC Link v2 can connect to multiple ALBs, making it easy to scale your architecture
- - Private internal APIs: Keep your services private while still benefiting from API Gateway's features like throttling, caching, and authentication
Getting Started
The setup is straightforward:
- 1. Create a VPC Link v2 in API Gateway
- 2. Point it to your VPC and subnets where your ALB lives
- 3. Configure your REST API integration to use the VPC Link
- 4. Deploy and test
One VPC Link can connect to multiple ALBs, so if you're managing several microservices, you can consolidate everything through a single VPC Link instead of creating separate connections for each service.
The Bottom Line
This is a huge win for teams running private ALB-based microservices on ECS or EKS. AWS listened to customer feedback about complexity and costs, and delivered a solution that simplifies architecture, reduces expenses, and improves performance.
If you're currently using the NLB intermediary pattern, it's worth evaluating a migration to this direct integration model. The operational and cost benefits make it a compelling upgrade.
The feature is available now in all AWS Regions where VPC Link v2 and ALBs are supported. Time to simplify your API architecture.
