Migrate from Ingress NGINX to Gateway API with a step-by-step approach, including validation, traffic shifting, and monitoring to avoid regressions.

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Ingress NGINX reached end-of-life in March 2026, making migration to Kubernetes Gateway API an urgent security priority due to unpatched vulnerabilities like IngressNightmare and recent CVEs. This guide walks through a structured, incremental migration process: choosing a Gateway API controller (NGINX Gateway Fabric, Istio, Envoy Gateway, or cloud-provider options), capturing a performance baseline, installing the new controller alongside Ingress NGINX, translating Ingress configs to Gateway and Route resources using the Ingress2Gateway tool, verifying acceptance and resolving refs, validating with synthetic traffic, and performing a DNS cutover. The post also covers monitoring the migration using Datadog dashboards, SLOs, APM traces, Watchdog anomaly detection, and Network Map topology views. An appendix explains Gateway API's role-oriented design, separating GatewayClass (infra providers), Gateway (cluster operators), and Route (app developers) responsibilities.

Ingress NGINX is EOL: A practical guide for migrating to Kubernetes Gateway API

Migrate to Gateway API one step at a time

Appendix: How Kubernetes Gateway API models traffic flow

Monitor your Gateway API migration with Datadog