Overview

This is a summary of what I researched about service meshes.

What is a Service Mesh?

A network infrastructure that manages communication between services (in a distributed system).

Typically, it is configured by adding a proxy as a sidecar to the services.

What a Service Mesh Solves

Improved observability
Management and control of communication between services
Enhanced security of communication between services

Features of a Service Mesh

Service Discovery
- Managing connection information for services via DNS or load balancers can cause delivery delays.
- By delegating the management of connection information to the service mesh, delivery delays can be minimized.
Service Routing
- By allowing the service mesh to handle the routing of traffic between services, the routing can be flexibly changed.
Fault Isolation
- e.g. Circuit Breaker
Load Balancing
Authentication and Authorization
- Instead of preparing mechanisms for each service, delegating to the service mesh can reduce the burden on each service.
Observability
- Enhances the observability of traffic that spans multiple services.
  - Enables tracing.

Disadvantages of a Service Mesh

The following are common disadvantages associated with service meshes that require proxies. Proxyless service meshes (e.g. Traffic Director) are not subject to these limitations.