By IT Brew Staff
less than 3 min read
Definition:
Most applications rely on a variety of services, including search, database retrieval, routing client requests, payment services, and more. These services must often communicate with each other with minimal latency; for example, an enterprise sales application’s database must yield customer data in response to a search. This can result in some services quickly becoming overloaded; to continue the previous example, if a quarter-end push means hundreds of sales representatives searching the customer database, an application can potentially slow down and stall.
That’s where the need for a service mesh comes in, especially as applications scale up to serve large numbers of users. A service mesh keeps track of services within the application, load-balances requests between those services via algorithm, manages traffic, and provides a level of security (via encryption, authentication, and authorization). At the core of service mesh architecture is a data plane, which handles data functions such as load balancing, and a control plane, which determines routing rules, security settings, and more.
In addition to helping keep operations smooth, service meshes also give IT stakeholders increased visibility into the workings of complex applications, which can speed up troubleshooting and other functions. Some popular service mesh options include the open-source Istio and the more lightweight Linkerd.
