20 Service Mesh Interview Questions and Answers

A Service Mesh is a network of microservices that communicate with each other to form a complete application. Service Mesh architectures are becoming increasingly popular as they offer a number of benefits over monolithic architectures, including improved scalability, availability, and observability.

If you’re interviewing for a position that involves working with Service Mesh, you’re likely to be asked questions about your experience and knowledge. In this article, we’ll discuss some of the most common Service Mesh interview questions and how to answer them.

Service Mesh Interview Questions and Answers

Here are 20 commonly asked Service Mesh interview questions and answers to prepare you for your interview:

1. What is a Service Mesh?

A Service Mesh is a network of microservices that communicate with each other to handle requests. A Service Mesh typically contains a load balancer, a proxy server, and a number of microservices. The load balancer distributes requests among the microservices, and the proxy server handles communication between the microservices.

2. What’s the difference between a service mesh and an API gateway?

A service mesh is a network of microservices that communicate with each other to handle requests. An API gateway is a single point of entry into a system that can route requests to the appropriate microservice.

3. Can you explain why service meshes are important in microservices architecture?

Service meshes are important in microservices architecture because they provide a way for services to communicate with each other in a safe and reliable way. By creating a service mesh, you can be sure that each service is able to communicate with the others in a way that is both efficient and effective. This is especially important in microservices architecture because there are often a large number of services that need to be able to communicate with each other.

4. How do service meshes improve security in microservices architectures?

Service meshes improve security in microservices architectures by providing a central point of control for managing and securing communication between services. By using a service mesh, you can enforce security policies, such as encryption and authentication, across all services in your architecture. This helps to prevent attacks that could exploit vulnerabilities in individual services.

5. What are some of the advantages of using a service mesh like Istio over traditional tools?

Istio provides a number of advantages over traditional tools, including improved traffic management, security, and observability. Istio can also help to reduce the complexity of microservices deployments, making it easier to manage and deploy them at scale.

6. What is the sidecar pattern?

The sidecar pattern is a microservices design pattern in which an application is deployed as two separate services, one of which is a proxy or “sidecar” for the other. The sidecar proxy handles all communication between the two services, providing an additional layer of abstraction and security.

7. Why is it recommended to use the sidecar pattern with service meshes?

The sidecar pattern is recommended for use with service meshes because it allows for a more granular control over how traffic is routed between services. By having a dedicated sidecar proxy for each service, you can more easily control and monitor the traffic flowing between them. This can be especially useful in microservice architectures, where there may be a large number of services communicating with each other.

8. What are the two major components of Istio?

The two major components of Istio are the data plane and the control plane. The data plane is responsible for handling traffic within the mesh, while the control plane is responsible for managing and configuring the data plane.

9. What are some common features provided by all service meshes?

Service meshes typically provide features such as traffic routing, monitoring, and security. These features allow for better control and visibility over the communication between microservices, which can help to identify and debug issues more quickly.

10. What is the role of proxies in a service mesh?

Proxies play a vital role in a service mesh as they are responsible for routing traffic between services. Without proxies, it would not be possible for services to communicate with each other, which would severely limit the capabilities of a service mesh.

11. What types of proxies can be used for implementing a service mesh?

There are two types of proxies that can be used for implementing a service mesh: sidecar proxies and gateway proxies. Sidecar proxies are deployed alongside application code and can be used to intercept and route traffic to and from application services. Gateway proxies are deployed at the edge of a network and can be used to provide ingress and egress points for traffic flowing to and from application services.

12. What are control plane services?

Control plane services are the components of a service mesh that are responsible for managing and configuring the mesh itself. This includes tasks such as service discovery, routing, and monitoring.

13. What are data plane services?

Data plane services are the components of a service mesh that are responsible for forwarding traffic between microservices. They typically run as a sidecar container alongside each microservice instance, and handle tasks such as load balancing, service discovery, and monitoring.

14. Can you give me some examples of commercial service meshes that are already being used in production environments?

Istio, Linkerd, and Consul Connect are all popular service meshes that are being used in production environments.

15. What type of authentication does Istio support for its REST APIs?

Istio supports both Basic Authentication and OAuth2 for its REST APIs.

16. Can you explain what a circuit breaker is?

A circuit breaker is a mechanism that is used to prevent cascading failures in a distributed system. It does this by monitoring for failures and, if it detects too many failures, it will open the circuit, which will prevent further requests from being sent to the downstream services. This can help to prevent a small failure from becoming a much larger one.

17. What happens if a request fails while running behind a circuit breaker?

If a request fails while running behind a circuit breaker, the breaker will open and the request will be routed to a fallback service.

18. Is it possible to override service configurations at runtime? If yes, then how?

Yes, it is possible to override service configurations at runtime. This can be done by using a tool like Consul or by manually editing the configuration files.

19. Can you explain multi-tenancy in the context of a service mesh?

Multi-tenancy is the ability of a service mesh to support multiple isolated tenants within a single mesh. This can be useful in a number of scenarios, such as when multiple teams are working on separate projects and need to keep their traffic isolated from each other. Multi-tenancy can also be used to provide different levels of service to different users, such as giving premium users a higher quality of service than non-paying users.

20. Where is the configuration stored when using a service mesh?

The configuration for a service mesh is typically stored in a central location, such as a configuration server. This allows for the configuration to be easily updated and managed.