# Service Discovery

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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](https://glossary.cncf.io/containerization/) 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.

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- Canonical URL: https://glossary.cncf.io/service-discovery/
- Status: Completed
- Last modified November 30, 2023: ` chore: remove duplicated lines ` ([e57ed31](https://github.com/cncf/glossary/commit/e57ed3109d8084268bac253d77a19e799d83bcf9))
- Source: https://github.com/cncf/glossary/blob/main/content/en/service-discovery.md
- License: [CC BY 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)