Exploring a service mesh and its benefits
In Chapter 7, we reviewed what a security group is and how it can be used to control access to worker nodes (and the Pods running on them) using simple P-based rules (source/destination IP address, source/destination ports, and protocol type) in the VPC. In Chapter 9, we looked at using K8s network policies to control intra-cluster traffic using K8s namespaces and labels.
The challenge with both these approaches is they are relatively static, so as the application topology changes, the applications scale in or out. For example, IP addresses can change and this means changes to the configuration are needed. Also, as you deploy more services, the operational burden of ensuring the configurations are correct, deploying them across multiple clusters, and monitoring their operation becomes increasingly complex and difficult.
A service mesh resolves these issues by replacing multiple control points and configurations with a control plane, which...
