Do You Really Need a Service Mesh?

The challenges involved in deploying and managing microservices have led to the creation of the service mesh, a tool for adding observability, security, and traffic management capabilities at the application layer (L7). While a service mesh is intended to help Developers and SREs with a number of use cases related to service-to-service communication within the cluster, the service mesh also adds operational complexity and introduces an additional control plane for the team to manage. Now there’s a better way to achieve granular observability and security…not just at the application layer, but across the full L3 – L7 stack…and address the top use cases that drive service mesh consideration.

Learn how Calico enables single-pane-of-glass unified control to address the three most popular service mesh use cases, security, observability and control, with an operationally simpler approach, while avoiding the complexities associated with deploying a separate, standalone service mesh. We’ll discuss the benefits of this approach, and how you can easily achieve full-stack L3 – L7 observability and defense in-depth, deploy highly performant encryption, and tightly integrate with existing security infrastructure like firewalls with Calico Cloud and Calico Enterprise.