AWS App Mesh

Caution

AWS is phasing out this service or has closed it to new customers. Check its current status in the official docs before using it in a new project.

Concept

AWS App Mesh was a service mesh — a system to control and observe communication between microservices. It placed a small proxy called Envoy next to each service. All traffic went through this proxy, so you could set rules for retries, traffic splitting and encryption without changing the app’s code. Using data from the proxy, you could see how slow or failing each service was. AWS now recommends using Amazon ECS Service Connect or Amazon VPC Lattice instead.

Simple example

A controlled postal system for letters between many departments — it keeps track of who sent what to whom, and how long it took.

Why it’s needed

When there are many microservices, handling their communication, retries and security is hard.

Where it’s used

Older microservice systems. AWS now recommends alternatives such as ECS Service Connect or VPC Lattice instead.

Azure equivalent

Istio-based service mesh add-on for AKS

Remember

App Mesh = a communication system for services; use an alternative for new work.

Learn more

For details and the latest information, see the official documentation:

• AWS App Mesh — AWS official documentation ↗