ITGSS Certified DevOps Engineer Practice Test

Which element of a service mesh provides secure, high-performance routing?

1. Service discovery

2. Sidecar proxy servers

3. Load balancers

4. Traditional routers

The correct answer is: Sidecar proxy servers

The correct answer highlights the role of sidecar proxy servers within a service mesh architecture in providing secure and high-performance routing. Sidecar proxies are deployed alongside application services and facilitate communication between these services by intercepting and managing the traffic that flows between them. This architectural pattern enables several functions, including routing requests intelligently based on service availability, load, and health. The sidecar proxy can enforce security policies, such as mutual TLS (mTLS), ensuring that communications between services are encrypted and authenticated. Moreover, sidecars can be configured to provide observability features, such as traffic monitoring and logging, which contribute to performance optimization and troubleshooting. By using sidecar proxies, developers can implement fine-grained routing capabilities without modifying the application code, promoting a decoupled architecture that enhances flexibility and maintainability. In contrast, other elements mentioned, such as service discovery, load balancers, and traditional routers, do serve crucial functions in a networking context, but they do not deliver the same level of integrated capabilities specifically designed for inter-service communication in a service mesh environment.