Service discovery
Service discovery is the process of identifying available services and obtaining the names, locations, or connection information needed to access them.
Building Distributed Applications that Work
Service discovery is a mechanism by which services locate the network endpoints of other services dynamically rather than relying on fixed addresses.
- How it is used
- Lets Aspire-hosted services call one another by registered name instead of manually configured network addresses.
- How deep it goes
- Defines registration and querying, then implements named HTTP calls and integration workarounds; does not detail registry internals.
- Examples
- Uses a storefront calling an API, a SignalR order-tracking hub, an Ollama container, and identity-provider redirects.
- What you can do after
- Apply it via Aspire service defaults to configure named HTTP calls and recognize when an integration needs a standard URL or custom handler.
Read how Building Distributed Applications that Work explains service discovery →
Kubernetes for Developers
Service discovery is the process of locating available services and their network endpoints within a distributed system.
- How it is used
- Uses Kubernetes Services to connect applications without embedding changing cluster IP addresses in deployment or application code.
- How deep it goes
- Explains DNS and environment-variable mechanisms, scope, ordering, and restart implications, but does not detail DNS internals.
- Examples
- Demonstrates timeserver-to-robohash calls through DNS, environment variables, Deployment YAML, and kubectl inspection.
- What you can do after
- Apply it via Kubernetes DNS names or Service environment variables to configure portable inter-application calls.
Read how Kubernetes for Developers explains service discovery →
Kubernetes in Action, Second Edition
Service discovery is a mechanism by which applications locate other applications or services and obtain the information needed to use them.
- How it is used
- Delegates application and peer lookup in distributed applications to Kubernetes infrastructure.
- How deep it goes
- Defines the mechanism and its application role, but stops short of implementation steps, configuration, and lookup internals.
- Examples
- Uses service and peer discovery within a distributed application as its concrete application context.
- What you can do after
- Apply it via Kubernetes by relying on platform-provided discovery instead of implementing infrastructure mechanisms inside applications.
Read how Kubernetes in Action, Second Edition explains service discovery →
Machine Learning Platform Engineering
Service discovery is the automatic identification of available application services and their network locations.
- How it is used
- Connects newly deployed Kubernetes applications to Prometheus scraping for operational monitoring.
- How deep it goes
- Explains pod annotations, metrics endpoints, target verification, and querying, without detailing the discovery mechanism’s internals.
- Examples
- Uses a FastAPI /metrics endpoint, Kubernetes scrape annotations, Prometheus targets, and Grafana request time series.
- What you can do after
- Operate/configure Prometheus to discover annotated application pods and verify that their metrics are scraped.
Read how Machine Learning Platform Engineering explains service discovery →
Platform Engineering on Kubernetes
Service discovery is the mechanism by which services locate and communicate with one another through stable names instead of changing network addresses.
- How it is used
- Connects services inside a Kubernetes cluster without requiring callers to track changing pod addresses.
- How deep it goes
- Defines Kubernetes Services as routing and load-balancing abstractions, but defers detailed resource management.
- Examples
- Uses the Conference application, Kubernetes Services, service names, replicas, and changing pod IP addresses.
- What you can do after
- Operate/configure Kubernetes Services so applications address replicas through stable names instead of pod IP addresses.
Read how Platform Engineering on Kubernetes explains service discovery →
Quarkus in Action
A service discovery mechanism dynamically locates the network address of a service in a distributed system.
- How it is used
- Decouples service locations from application configuration in dynamically changing cloud deployments.
- How deep it goes
- Explains dynamic discovery, Kubernetes Services, Stork alternatives, and load balancing, but defers detailed Stork configuration.
- Examples
- Uses Kubernetes service names, pod groups, service proxies, and Stork mechanism choices as concrete examples.
- What you can do after
- Operate/configure service connections through Kubernetes names or select a Stork-backed discovery mechanism.
Learn Docker in a Month of Lunches, Second Edition
Service discovery is the technique of dynamically locating a service and obtaining the network address needed to communicate with it.
- How it is used
- Uses DNS-based names to connect Docker Compose containers despite changing container IP addresses.
- How deep it goes
- Explains Docker DNS, network resolution, scaling behavior, and verification commands without descending into DNS internals.
- Examples
- Demonstrates scaled iotd and accesslog services through nslookup inside the image-gallery web container.
- What you can do after
- Operate/configure Docker Compose services and verify name-based connectivity with nslookup.
Read how Learn Docker in a Month of Lunches, Second Edition explains service discovery →
Related concepts
- HTTP clientuses · An HTTP client is software or an API component that sends HTTP requests and receives and processes HTTP responses.
- Prometheusused by · Prometheus is an open-source monitoring and alerting system that collects, stores, and queries time-series metrics.
- domain name systemuses · The Domain Name System is a distributed, hierarchical naming system that resolves domain names to IP addresses and other network resource records.
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