Service Mesh
A dedicated infrastructure layer handling service-to-service communication, observability, and security in microservices.
Definition
A service mesh is a dedicated infrastructure layer for managing service-to-service communication in microservices architectures. It handles cross-cutting concerns including traffic management, load balancing, service discovery, security (mutual TLS), observability (distributed tracing, metrics, logging), and circuit breaking — without requiring changes to application code. A service mesh typically uses sidecar proxies (like Envoy) alongside each service instance. Popular service meshes include Istio, Linkerd, and AWS App Mesh.
Example
“An Istio service mesh automatically encrypts all traffic between microservices with mutual TLS and provides a real-time dashboard showing latency, error rates, and traffic flows.”
Synonyms
- sidecar proxy network
- service network layer
- inter-service infrastructure
Antonyms / Opposites
- direct service communication
- no service proxy
Images
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Related Terms
- microservices
- kubernetes
- envoy
- observability