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MDCB Architecture: Tyk’s Distributed Deployment Model

Tyk Multi Data Center Bridge (MDCB) enables distributed API management by separating your deployment into a central control plane and multiple data planes. This architecture allows you to deploy gateways closer to your users while maintaining centralized management.

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Architectural Overview

[Diagram showing the complete MDCB architecture with control plane and data planes] MDCB creates a distributed architecture with two main components:
  • Control Plane: Central management environment where APIs and policies are defined
  • Data Planes: Edge environments where API traffic is processed
This separation provides geographic distribution, data residency compliance, and improved performance for global deployments.

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Control Plane Components

The control plane is the central management environment containing:
  • Tyk Dashboard: The management UI and API for configuring APIs, policies, and analytics
  • Control Plane Gateway: A standard Tyk Gateway that serves the Dashboard API and processes local API requests
  • MDCB Service: The synchronization service that communicates with data planes
  • Redis: Stores API definitions, policies, and keys for the control plane
  • MongoDB/PostgreSQL: Stores Dashboard configurations, analytics, and user data

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Data Plane Components

Each data plane operates semi-independently and contains:
  • Worker Gateways: Tyk Gateways configured to connect to the MDCB service
  • Local Redis: Stores API definitions, policies, and keys for the data plane
  • Optional Pump: Processes analytics data locally or forwards it to the control plane
Data planes can continue to operate even if the connection to the control plane is temporarily lost.

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Synchronization Mechanism

MDCB synchronizes configurations from the control plane to data planes through:
  • RPC Protocol: Secure communication channel between MDCB and worker gateways
  • Resource Synchronization: API definitions, policies, keys, and certificates are synchronized to data planes
  • Synchronizer Feature: Ensures data planes have the latest configurations
  • Conflict Resolution: Handles updates when data planes reconnect after disconnection

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Security Implementation

Security is implemented at multiple levels:
  • Authentication: Worker gateways authenticate to MDCB using organization-level API keys
  • TLS: All communication between control plane and data planes is encrypted
  • Access Control: Data planes only receive configurations relevant to their group
  • Isolation: Each data plane operates in its own security boundary

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Common Deployment Patterns

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Hub and Spoke Pattern

[Diagram of hub and spoke deployment]
  • Central control plane with multiple data planes
  • All management through the central Dashboard
  • Ideal for organizations with a central IT team and distributed operations

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Regional Control Planes

[Diagram of regional control planes]
  • Multiple control planes for different regions
  • Limited or no synchronization between control planes
  • Ideal for organizations with strong regional autonomy or compliance requirements

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Implementation Example: Global Financial Services API Platform

This example demonstrates how a financial services company implemented MDCB to:
  • Meet data residency requirements in EU, US, and APAC regions
  • Minimize latency for trading APIs
  • Maintain centralized governance and security policies
[Detailed diagram of the implementation with specific configuration details] Key implementation decisions:
  1. Control plane located in primary data center
  2. Data planes in 5 geographic regions
  3. Local Redis clusters for high availability
  4. Regional Pumps for analytics aggregation
  5. Group-based API segmentation for regional differences

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Next Steps