An Intellyx Brain Candy Brief
Linkerd (pronounced ‘linker dee’) is an open source proxy that provides a uniform layer of instrumentation and control across services, especially microservices running in containers. Linkerd takes care of several of the knottier challenges with scaling containerized environments, including latency-aware load balancing, connection pooling, transport layer security (TLS), instrumentation, and request-level routing.
As a proxy, linkerd is a lightweight intermediary appropriate for scalable containerized environments – what its creators call a ‘service mesh.’
One way to think of linkerd is that it serves the same role for cloud-native, container-based microservices that Enterprise Service Buses (ESBs) served for on-premises Service-Oriented Architecture deployments, only without the message transport at the core of most ESBs.
As such, it fills an essential missing piece necessary for scaling Kubernetes, Docker, and other container environments to the level suitable for enterprise-class applications.
Buoyant is the vendor that is currently driving the development of linkerd, while also providing support for linkerd users. Over time, Buoyant is likely to develop an enterprise version of linkerd, but for now, it is focused on maturing the software and building its user base.
Copyright © Intellyx LLC. Intellyx publishes the Agile Digital Transformation Roadmap poster, advises companies on their digital transformation initiatives, and helps vendors communicate their agility stories. As of the time of writing, none of the organizations mentioned in this article are Intellyx customers. To be considered for a Brain Candy article, email us at pr@intellyx.com.
