Kong API platform adds service catalog

API infrastructure platform provider Kong has updated its Kong Konnect API platform with the Konnect Service Catalog, a de facto system of record that enables greater visibility and stronger management of all APIs in a company’s IT infrastructure, the company said.  

The update was announced September 11. Kong Konnect is positioned as an enterprise-grade unified platform for securely building and running API applications. It covers the API life cycle from development to security, governance, and cost efficiency.

Featured in the update is the Konnect Service Catalog, which integrates with systems such as API gateways, service meshes, and Kubernetes to provide a “single source of truth” for all APIs in the infrastructure, enhanced visibility and control over shadow APIs, and allow organizations to proactively mitigate vulnerabilities by eliminating undiscovered and unused APIs, Kong said.

Also featured is AI Gateway 3.8, an update to the gateway for connecting with large language models (LLMs) that introduces semantic caching, to accelerate AI responses by as much as 20 times while reducing computational overhead. This makes generative AI applications faster and more cost-effective, Kong said. Also featured in AI Gateway is Semantic Prompt Guard, to provide security by intelligently blocking inappropriate prompts, and Semantic Routing, to simplify AI model selection.

Other features cited in the Kong Connect update:

• Konnect Dedicated Cloud Gateways on AWS and now Azure. Kong’s fully managed, multi-region API management solution is now available on the Azure cloud and additional AWS regions, for having high-performance API infrastructure globally. 
• Kong Gateway 3.8. Kong’s cloud-native gateway introduces Incremental Configuration Updates and enhanced OpenTelemetry support. With Incremental Configuration Updates, users benefit from dramatically reduced memory and CPU usage, improving efficiency and responsiveness. Enhanced OpenTelemetry support improves observability to enable more efficient, secure, and scalable API operations, Kong said.

• Kong Insomnia 10. Kong’s API design and testing tool adds features to improve developer productivity, including unlimited collection runs and AI Runner, to improve generative AI development with multi-LLM support and faster performance through semantic caching. Enterprise security features are offered such as Invite Control, to protect API assets and restrict them to authorized users.
• Kong Serverless Gateways. This new offering allows developers to deploy a fully featured API gateway “in a matter of minutes,” Kong said. Developers can select the option of “Serverless” while creating a new gateway instance and immediately begin defining services and setting up routes. Serverless Gateways eliminate the burden of gateway infrastructure, life cycle management, and maintenance, with Kong handling management and upkeep.
• Advanced API and AI Analytics. These capabilities include granular visibility into API performance metrics such as latency and request size, along with LLM-specific reporting, helping teams to improve and maintain API quality and performance.
• Konnect Config Store. A cloud-based repository for managing API configurations, the Konnect Config Store promises to help reduce operational overload and ensure consistency across data planes. This lowers the cost of ownership and simplifies vendor management, Kong said.