Definition
A service mesh is the infrastructure layer providing service-to-service communication features — including mTLS, authorization, observability — without requiring application code changes.
In more depth
Implementations: Istio, Linkerd, Consul Connect, AWS App Mesh. Each service runs a sidecar proxy (Envoy in most) that handles encryption, authentication, and policy enforcement.
Foundational for Zero Trust workload identity: every service-to-service call is authenticated + authorized.
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