What does the Mule runtime use to enforce policies and limit access to APIs?

The Mule runtime enforces policies and limits access to APIs through its embedded API Gateway. This gateway is integral to the Mule runtime and allows for the management and enforcement of security policies directly at the point of access to the API. By incorporating the API Gateway functionalities, Mule can apply various policies such as rate limiting, IP whitelisting, and authentication mechanisms to incoming requests, thus ensuring that only authorized users can access specific API resources.

In the context of API management, utilizing the embedded API Gateway helps streamline security operations and maintains performance by ensuring that these checks are performed as early as possible in the request handling process. This architecture also allows for richer logging, monitoring, and the enforcement of various compliance requirements.

Other choices, while related to API management, do not specifically embody the enforcement mechanism at the runtime level as effectively as the embedded API Gateway. For instance, the API Manager plays a crucial role in defining and managing APIs but relies on the embedded API Gateway to implement those policies. The proxy and Access Control options are complementary features but are not the primary means by which the Mule runtime enforces access and policies.