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Best practices for designing a central gateway/hub for microservices communication

I'm currently working on an architecture for a microservices-based platform and I would like to get some feedback in this regard — best way to handle integrations between the _internal_ microservices and _external_ services.

### Current Approach

Currently, each microservice integrates directly with the required _external_ services, leading to repeated implementations across multiple microservices. This redundancy can complicate maintenance and increase the potential for inconsistencies.

### Proposed Solution

I'm thinking of implementing a **central service** that will act as a _gateway_ for all microservices within the platform. This gateway would:

- **Utilize gRPC** for communication, which provides better performance and support for streaming
- **Route requests** from any microservice to the appropriate _external_ services, acting as a central hub (and translator) for all communication channels
- **Aggregate data** from multiple sources, allowing internal microservices to make a single gRPC call without needing to know the details and protocols of the external services

By having internal microservices communicate only with the _gateway_, I can simplify the overall design. However, I have some reservations about this approach, particularly regarding the potential for a _single point of failure_ and _performance bottlenecks_ for the entire platform. While there are strategies to mitigate these risks (such as implementing redundancy and scaling strategies in Kubernetes), it remains a critical consideration.

Another concern is the inherent complexity — really from any solution. The gateway must remain focused on its primary role, and if it grows too complex, it may be beneficial to break it down into smaller, more manageable components. However, I'm uncertain about how to approach this breakdown, as this was the initial starting point of my design.

> Notice I don't mention anything about authentication/authorization as this is handled in a different centralized layer.

### Questions

- Does this approach make sense for a microservices architecture?
- What are some best practices for implementing this?
- Are there any potential pitfalls I should be aware of, particularly when using gRPC?

Will appreciate any insights or experiences you can share regarding this _design pattern_!