What is a Service Mesh?

The software layer that manages all communication between services in applications is called a service mesh. Microservices that are containerized make up this tier.  

Sometimes, it gets harder to keep an eye on the services' performance as applications grow in size and the number of microservices rises. Hence, a service mesh offers new functionality including traffic control, tracing, and monitoring to manage connections between services. It may operate with different service management systems covering network boundaries because it is not dependent on the code of every service.

The service mesh mainly comprises of two features: Data plane and Control plane.

The data plane oversees the application's observability, network functionality, and security. It is made up of the assortment of sidecar proxies that have been placed throughout the environment. Telemetry information on every mesh traffic is also gathered and reported by data planes.

All proxies are managed and configured by the control plane to route traffic. It manages telemetry data aggregation, authentication, authorization, and health management. Each proxy receives its certificate from the control plane, which also manages certificate management.

Broad Benefits

Load Balancing

Traffic Management

Monitoring

Security