February 12, 2024

To:         Layer7 API Security Customers

From:     The Broadcom Layer7 API Security Product Team

Subject:  Release Announcement for the Layer7 Operator

The Layer7 product group of Broadcom's IMS division is pleased to announce that the Layer7 Operator is now available for preview.

The Layer7 Operator will completely transform the deployment, configuration and management of Layer7 API security. These become automatic, pain free and almost instant activities to ensure the latest security rules can be deployed to architectures with ease. The Layer7 Operator will help customers unlock the many benefits of cloud native deployments and upgrades, including greater agility, availability and scalability; faster times to market; and reduced costs.

See it in action, and get started now!

Note: Layer7 will provide production support of this progressive delivery preview feature to a limited number of approved customers. If you’re interested in using this preview feature in production with support from Broadcom, we welcome you to open a support ticket to request approval. All other customers are encouraged to preview this feature in non-production environments, and provide feedback through the Layer7 Community portal.

The Layer7 Operator is a separate component from the Layer7 API Gateway, and future updates will enhance it progressively to also facilitate the deployment and management of additional Layer7 API Management elements, such as the Layer7 API Developer Portal and the OAuth Toolkit.

Operators are Kubernetes extensions created using the Operator SDK. They make use of custom resources to manage applications and their components adhering to the Kubernetes principle of control loops. A control loop constantly observes the desired state of resources, analyzes the actual state of those resources, and executes actions to synchronize the current state with the desired state as necessary.

Kubernetes operators automates tasks traditionally performed by a human operator of an application. Kubernetes operators should have the same level of deployment, behavior and troubleshooting expertise as a human operator when automating those tasks.

The Layer7 Operator has expert knowledge of the Layer7 API Gateway, and it makes use of gateway and repository custom resources to automate the deployment and configuration of gateways backed by MySQL databases, or using static or dynamic config-as-code in the form of Graphman bundles from different sources of truth including git repositories or artifact repositories.

Here are the highlights of the Layer7 Operator preview release:

• Feature Parity with Gateway Helm Deployments

The Layer7 Operator supports the same deployment options for the Layer7 API Gateway as its Helm chart does, including support for initContainers but excluding sub-charts to deploy optional integrations.

• Helm Deployment for the Layer7 Operator

The Layer7 Operator itself can be deployed using Helm. Then, the Layer7 Operator can deploy and manage gateways using Gateway custom resources instead of Helm.

• Graphman Integration

The Layer7 Operator itself uses Graphman to dynamically apply configuration to managed gateways.

• Static and Dynamic Config as Code for Ephemeral Gateways

The Layer7 Operator automates the configuration of ephemeral container gateways by applying Graphman bundles statically on gateway startup or dynamically to running gateways without having to restart them.

• Git and Artifact Repository Config Sources of Truth

The Layer7 Operator can monitor git and artifact repositories for changes to exploded or imploded Graphman bundle content, and pull and cache those changes to efficiently and automatically apply them to managed gateways.

• External Secrets Management

The Layer7 Operator can synchronize external secrets via the Kubernetes External Secrets Operator with Layer7 API Gateway stored passwords.

Additional documentation for the Layer7 Operator can be found in its GitHub wiki, and as introduced in the Layer7 API Gateway container documentation’s Thinking in Kubernetes section.

Your success is very important to us, and we look forward to continuing our successful partnership with you.

Thank you again for your business.