Understanding Modern Application Architecture - Part 3

In this last article of the series discussing Modern Application Architecture, we will be discussion manageability with respect to the traffic. As the traffic patterns grow and look quite different from monolithic applications, different approaches need to take place in order to maintain the stability of the application.

 

Understanding Modern Application Architecture - Part 1 

Understanding Modern Application Architecture - Part 2 

 

In this next video, we discuss Service Mesh. As modern applications expand and their communications change to microservice to microservice, a service mesh can be introduced to provide control, security and visibility to that traffic. Since individual microservices can be written by different individuals or groups, the service mesh can be the intermediary that allows them to understand what is happening when one piece of code needs to speak to another piece of code. At the same time, trust and verification can happen between the microservices to ensure they are talking to what they should be talking to.

 

 

In this next video we discuss Sidecar Proxies. As mentioned in the Service Mesh video, the sidecar proxy is a key piece of the mesh implementation. It is responsible for functions such as TLS termination, mutual TLS and authentication. It can also be used for tracing and other observability. This means these functions don't have to be performed by the microservice itself.

 

 

In this final video, we review NGINX as a Production Grade Kubernetes Solution. While Modern Applications will adopt Open Source Solutions where possible, these applications can be mission critical ones that require the highest level of service. As mentioned in the previous videos in this series, there are a number of important pieces of a Kubernetes cluster that can be augmented, or replaced by enhanced services. NGINX can actually perform as an enhanced Ingress Controller, giving a high level of control as well as performance for inbound traffic to the cluster. NGINX with App Protect can also provide finer grain controlled web application security for the inbound web based components of the application. And finally, NGINX Service Mesh can help with the microservice to microservice control, security and visibility, offloading that function from the microservice itself.

 

 

We hope that this video series has helped shed some light for those who are curious about modern application architecture. As you have questions, don't hesistate to ask in our Technical Forums!