Service Discovery

Service discovery is the process of finding individual instances that make up a service. A service discovery tool keeps track of the various nodes or endpoints that make up a service.

Problem it addresses

Cloud native architectures are dynamic and fluid, meaning they are constantly changing. A containerized app will likely end up starting and stopping multiple times in its lifetime. Each time that happens, it will have a new address and any app that wants to find it needs a tool to provide the new location information.

How it helps

Service discovery keeps track of apps within the network so they can find one another when needed. It provides a common place to find and potentially identify individual services. Service discovery engines are database-like tools that store info about what services exist and how to locate them.