Service Mesh

Summary #

Takes care of connectivity between microservices

A service mesh, like the Open Source project Istio, is a way to control how different parts of an application share data with one another. Unlike other systems for managing this communication, a service mesh is a dedicated infrastructure layer built right into an app. This visible infrastructure layer can document how well (or not) different parts of an app interact, so it becomes easier to optimize communication and avoid downtime as an app grows.

Don’t microservices already do this? #

A microservices architecture lets developers make changes to an app’s services without the need for a full redeploy. Unlike app development in other architectures, individual microservices are built by small teams with the flexibility to choose their own tools and coding languages. Basically, microservices are built independently, communicate with each other, and can individually fail without escalating into an application-wide outage.

Microservices architecture #

Service-to-service communication is what makes microservices possible. The logic governing communication can be coded into each service without a service mesh layer—*but as communication gets more complex, a service mesh becomes more valuable* . For cloud-native apps built in a microservices architecture, a service mesh is a way to comprise a large number of discrete services into a functional application.