In a distributed microservice architecture, a service mesh is the network of microservices that make up applications, as well as the INTERACTIONS between those microservices. It might be difficult to comprehend and maintain a Service Mesh as it grows in size and complexity.

Red Hat OpenShift Service Mesh, which is BASED on the open-source Istio project, adds a translucent layer to current distributed systems without requiring any changes to the service CODE. By delivering a unique sidecar proxy to RELEVANT services in the mesh that intercepts all network communication between microservices, you can add Red Hat OpenShift Service Mesh functionality to services. The control plane features are used to configure and administer the Service Mesh.

Red Hat OpenShift Service Mesh makes it simple to build a network of deployed services that do the following:

• Discovery
• Load balancing
• service-to-service authentication
• Failure recovery
• Metrics
• Monitoring

Red Hat OpenShift Service Mesh also has more advanced operational features, such as:

• A/B testing
• Canary releases
• Rate limiting
• Access control
• End-to-end authentication

Red Hat OpenShift Service Mesh is made up of a data plane and a control plane.

The data plane is a set of intelligent proxies that intercept and regulate all inbound and outgoing network communication between microservices in the service mesh and run alongside application containers in a pod. The data plane is designed to intercept all network traffic, both inbound (ingress) and outbound (egress). The data plane's proxies are managed and configured by the control plane. It maintains access control and use regulations, as well as collects the metrics from the service mesh's proxies, and it is the DEFINITIVE source for configuration.