Public Preview: Support for gRPC APIs in Azure API Management Self-Hosted Gateway

We are thrilled to announce the public preview of gRPC support in Azure API Management through the self-hosted gateway. This exciting feature empowers customers to seamlessly manage their gRPC services as APIs within Azure API Management. 

What is gRPC? 

gRPC is a modern, high-performance framework facilitating smooth communication between services. Utilizing HTTP/2 for transport and Protocol Buffers (protobuf) as the interface description language, gRPC ensures lightweight, efficient communication—ideal for microservices architecture. 

Preview Highlights 

Full gRPC Support: Conduct unary, client streaming, server streaming, and bidirectional streaming calls. 

First-Class Schema Support: Import and manage gRPC services using their protobuf definitions, letting Azure API Management handle the rest. 

Security and Compliance: Implement standard Azure API Management policies to safeguard your gRPC services. 

Unified Management: Seamlessly manage gRPC APIs alongside other APIs within a single Azure API Management service instance. 

Deployment Flexibility: Securely and efficiently manage APIs on-premises, in Azure, and across other clouds by deploying the self-hosted gateway near your backend services. 

For more information on using gRPC with Azure API Management, explore our documentation.