What is Kubernetes Service Mesh?
- A Kubernetes service mesh is a tool that inserts security, observability, and reliability features to applications at the platform layer instead of the application layer.
- Service mesh technology predates Kubernetes. However, growing interest in service mesh solutions is directly related to the proliferation of Kubernetes-based microservices and a resulting interest in Kubernetes service mesh options.
- Microservices architectures are heavily network reliant. Service mesh manages network traffic between services.
- The service mesh in Kubernetes is typically implemented as a set of network proxies. Deployed alongside a “sidecar” of application code, these proxies serve as an introduction point for service mesh features and manage communication between the microservices. The data plane of the Kubernetes service mesh is made up by the proxies, which the control plane controls.
- Kubernetes and service mesh architectures arose as cloud native applications flourished. Hundreds of services may comprise any given application, and there may be thousands of instances of each service. Each of those instances demand dynamic scheduling as they change rapidly, which is where Kubernetes comes in.
- Clearly, this is a highly complex system of service to service communications, but it’s also a basic, normal part of runtime behavior for a standard application. To ensure the app is reliable, secure, and performs well end-to-end, insightful management is essential.
What is Kubernetes Service Mesh?
Service mesh allows in Kubernetes that the services can be discovered and talk to other services. In addition, it implements smart routing, which targets the creation of the connections these endpoints or services make to API calls and how traffic is shared among them. As a result, it enables canaries or rolling upgrades, blue/green, and other sophisticated deployment tactics.