Service discovery

As explained in 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.

Service discovery lets applications locate other applications or services and obtain the information needed to use them. Kubernetes provides this infrastructure capability so developers can focus on business logic instead of implementing discovery themselves. section 1.2.1

In a distributed application, Kubernetes can discover services or peers while keeping the application Kubernetes-agnostic. Applications may query the Kubernetes API when they need more detailed information about their environment. section 1.2.2

Service discovery belongs to a broader set of platform-provided capabilities, alongside horizontal scaling, load-balancing, self-healing, leader election, and centralized application configuration. section 1.2.1 section 1.2.2

Figure 1.8 Kubernetes is to a computer cluster what an operating system is to a computer.

The operating-system analogy places service discovery among the basic cluster capabilities Kubernetes supplies to applications. section 1.2.1

How Kubernetes in Action, Second Edition covers it

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 it assumes

Assumes distributed-application context while defining service discovery without requiring prior implementation knowledge.

What you can do after

Apply it via Kubernetes by relying on platform-provided discovery instead of implementing infrastructure mechanisms inside applications.

How it connects

Connects service discovery with distributed applications, Kubernetes, the Kubernetes API, and centralized application configuration.

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Also explained in

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  Building Distributed Applications that WorkService discovery is a mechanism by which services locate the network endpoints of other services dynamically rather than relying on fixed addresses.
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  Kubernetes for DevelopersService discovery is the process of locating available services and their network endpoints within a distributed system.
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  Machine Learning Platform EngineeringService discovery is the automatic identification of available application services and their network locations.
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  Platform Engineering on KubernetesService discovery is the mechanism by which services locate and communicate with one another through stable names instead of changing network addresses.
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  Quarkus in ActionA service discovery mechanism dynamically locates the network address of a service in a distributed system.
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  Learn Docker in a Month of Lunches, Second EditionService discovery is the technique of dynamically locating a service and obtaining the network address needed to communicate with it.

Compare how 7 books explain 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.

This explainer was generated by Manning's knowledge graph from the text of Kubernetes in Action, Second Edition. The section links point to the parts of the book it draws on.