service mesh
A dedicated infrastructure layer that manages service-to-service communication, security, and observability within microservices architectures.
A service mesh is an infrastructure layer that controls, secures, and monitors communication between microservices within a distributed application. It provides features such as traffic management, load balancing, service discovery, encryption, authentication, and observability—without requiring changes to application code.
Popular service mesh implementations, like Istio and Linkerd, use lightweight proxies alongside services to manage network traffic and enforce policies. Service meshes are critical for managing complexity, ensuring reliability, and enhancing security in modern cloud-native and AI-driven environments.
By adopting a service mesh, organizations gain granular control over service interactions, improve visibility, and accelerate troubleshooting in dynamic microservices ecosystems.