Distributed Micro Service Communication architecture based on Content Semantic
draft-li-dmsc-architecture-01
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| Document | Type | Active Internet-Draft (individual) | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Authors | Xueting Li , Aijun Wang , Wei Wang , Dirk KUTSCHER | ||
| Last updated | 2025-11-25 | ||
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draft-li-dmsc-architecture-01
DMSC Working Group X. Li
Internet-Draft A. Wang
Intended status: Standards Track W. Wang
Expires: 30 May 2026 China Telecom
D. Kutscher
HKUST(GZ)
26 November 2025
Distributed Micro Service Communication architecture based on Content
Semantic
draft-li-dmsc-architecture-01
Abstract
This draft introduces a novel communication architecture, called
Distributed Micro Service Communication architecture (DMSC). It
includes multiple aspects of microservice communication, such as
service registration, service discovery, service routing, service
scheduling, and more , Which to achieve all the essential
functionalities provided by current centralized service networks. By
incorporating content-semantic communication, DMSC significantly
enhances the performance, scalability, and reliability of
microservice communication. It provides a robust architecture for
managing the complex communication requirements of distributed
microservices, ensuring data integrity, security, and efficient
resource utilization. Furthermore, DMSC provides a reference
direction for the transition of the service mesh infrastructure from
a location-based model to a content- and service-centric paradigm.
Status of This Memo
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provisions of BCP 78 and BCP 79.
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Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months
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This Internet-Draft will expire on 30 May 2026.
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Copyright Notice
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Table of Contents
1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
2. Conventions used in this document . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
3. Terminology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
4. The overview of DMSC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
4.1. The control signaling messages design of DMSC . . . . . . 7
4.2. The key process of DMSC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
5. The implementation of DMSC's key functions . . . . . . . . . 11
6. The operation process of DMSC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
6.1. Control plane process . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
6.2. Forwarding plane process . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
7. Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
8. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
9. Acknowledgement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
10. Contributors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
11. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
Authors' Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
1. Introduction
Microservices [Microservices] represent a paradigm for building
complex software applications by breaking them down into small,
independent, and loosely coupled units called microservices. This
architecture improves application flexibility, maintainability, and
scalability by enabling each microservice [microservice] to focus on
a specific business capability and operate autonomously. With the
rise of cloud computing and cloud-native applications, the number of
services or components within applications has grown exponentially,
posing significant challenges for microservice communication.
Ensuring efficient service discovery and interaction in cloud-native
environments has become a critical issue.
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To address these challenges, service mesh [ServiceMesh] has emerged.
Service mesh aims to meet microservice communication requirements,
including service registration, discovery, traffic distribution,
quality monitoring, and secure communication. However, existing
service mesh architectures like Istio [Istio] and Linkerd face
architectural limitations (regarding the issues faced by the service
mesh, they will be compiled into a separate draft in the future).
For instance, the centralized management of sidecars in Istio's
control plane (as shown in figure 1) increases update costs and
frequency, thereby restricting scalability and flexibility in large-
scale distributed systems.
Traditional IP networks are designed around hosts and connections,
which limits their ability to address the emerging needs of modern
technologies like cloud computing, the Internet of Things (IoT), edge
computing, and microservice architectures. These technologies demand
a shift from connection-centric design to a content- and service-
centric model, enabling intelligent handling of service traffic,
dynamic resource allocation, and adaptive routing.
In response to these challenges, this draft proposes a Distributed
Micro Service Communication architecture (DMSC) based on content-
semantic. The DMSC architecture aims to address the large-scale
communication needs of microservices in cloud-native environments
while meeting the requirements for service delivery, flexibility,
security, and scalability. It also provides a forward-looking design
for the the transition of the service mesh infrastructure, supporting
its evolution towards a content- and service-centric architecture.
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+-------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| |
| +-------------------------------------------------------+ |
| | | |
| | +---------------+ +---------------+ | |
| | | +---------+ | | +---------+ | | |
| | Data | |Service A| | | |Service B| | | |
| | Plane| +---------+ | Mesh traffic| +---------+ | | |
| ---------> | | | |-----------> | | | |---------> |
|Ingress| | +---------+ | | +---------+ | | Egress |
|traffic| | | Proxy | | | | Proxy | | | traffic |
| | | +---------+ | | +---------+ | | |
| | +---------------+ +---------------+ | |
| | | Discovery | | |
| | | Configuration | | |
| | |_________Certificates_______| | |
| | | | |
| | | | |
| | | | |
| | +----------------------------+ | |
| | | Control Plane | | |
| | +----------------------------+ | |
| | | |
| +-------------------------------------------------------+ |
| |
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------+
Figure 1 The architecture of Istio
2. Conventions used in this document
The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT",
"SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this
document are to be interpreted as described in [RFC2119] .
3. Terminology
The following terms are defined in this draft:
* DMSC: Distributed Micro Service Communication architecture , a
distributed architecture for microservice communication defined in
this draft.
* Service: It is a component or microservices in the application.
* Pod: the Pod of Microservices, in the context of microservices, a
"Pod" refers to a group or collection of closely related
microservices that are co-located and deployed together within a
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shared execution environment. Pod is the foundation of all
business types, a collection of one or more microservices that
share storage, networks, and namespaces, as well as specifications
for how to operate, defined in [Istio]
* SG: Service Gateway, it is an important component in the DAMC
architecture. It is located between the Pod of Microservices and
the entire communication architecture, and is responsible for
handling the communication and coordination between Microservices.
* SPA: Service Prefixes Authentication, it is a key component in the
DAMC architecture, which is used to verify the validity and
validity of the service prefix declared by the Pod to which the
Microservices belongs.
* SR: Service Router, it is a network device or component that is
responsible for managing and processing the routing and forwarding
of communication traffic between Microservices.
* SCSC: Service Mesh Communication Scheduling Center，it is a key
component in the DAMC architecture responsible for coordinating
and managing the communication within the service mesh.
* FIB: Forwarding Information Base.
* RIB: Routing Information Base.
* LSP: Link State Message LSP (Link State PDUs) is used to exchange
link state information.
* LSDB: Link State Database. The state of all links in the network
constitutes the link state database.
4. The overview of DMSC
This section provides an overview of the DMSC architecture and an
introduction to its key features. The overall architecture of DMSC
is shown in Figure 2. It primarily consists of three types of
devices shown in Figure 2: Service Gateway (SG), Service Router (SR),
and Service Prefix Authentication (SPA) entities,along with a
centrally deployed Service Mesh Communication Scheduling Center
(SCSC), organized by domain. By integrating content semantics into
this architecture, the DMSC architecture aims to overcome the
limitations of host-based communication in traditional IP networks
and the constraints of centralized control planes in existing service
mesh architectures. It uses service prefix and content-based
addressing to uniquely identify and locate microservices, so as to
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achieve efficient and flexible communication. Service gateway (SG)
plays a vital role in service registration, discovery, routing and
quality control, while service router promotes the optimal forwarding
of communication traffic between microservices. The service prefix
authentication (SPA) entity ensures the legitimacy and authorization
of the service prefix declared by the microservices, and enhances the
security in the distributed microservices environment. In addition,
the service mesh communication scheduling center (SCSC) provides
effective coordination and allocation of customized forwarding
policies between the service gateway and service router (SR) based on
the quality detection results reported by SG. This enables
intelligent routing decisions to ensure that communication traffic is
directed to the most capable and efficient microservices node.
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+-----------------------------------------------------------------------+
| +---------------+ |
| | SCSC | |
| Pod 1 +---------------+ Pod 2 |
| +-----------------------+ | +------------------------+ |
| | service | | | service | |
| | +----+ +----+ +----+ | | | +----+ +----+ +----+ | |
| | | A/1| | B/1| | ...| | | | |... | | ...| | ...| | |
| | +----+ +----+ +----+ | | | +----+ +----+ +----+ | |
| +-----------------------+ | +------------------------+ |
| \ | / | \ | / |
| +----+ +---------+ |_______ +---------+ +----+ |
| |SPA |-------| SG-1 |_______/|_ | SG-2 |-------|SPA | |
| +----+ +---------+ / | \ +---------+ +----+ |
| \ _______|________ / |
| \ | / \ | / |
| +--- +--- |
| / SR \ --------- / SR \ |
| ---+ ---+ |
| | \ +--- / | |
| | / SR \ | |
| | ---+ | |
| | / \ | |
| +----+ +---------+ +---------+ +----+ |
| |SPA |-------| SG-3 | | SG-4 |-------|SPA | |
| +----+ +---------+ +---------+ +----+ |
| / | \ / | \ |
| +------------------------+ +------------------------+ |
| | +----+ +----+ +----+ | | +----+ +----+ +----+ | |
| | |... | |... | | ...| | | | A/4| | B/4| | ...| | |
| | +----+ +----+ +----+ | | +----+ +----+ +----+ | |
| | service | | service | |
| +------------------------+ +------------------------+ |
| Pod 3 Pod 4 |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------+
Figure 2 The overall distributed architecture for DMSC
4.1. The control signaling messages design of DMSC
In this draft, we defines a novel communication architecture, called
Distributed Micro Service Communication architecture (DMSC). It
encompasses all the critical functionalities offered by existing
centralized service networks. In the DMSC, we also define multiple
communication entities and clearly define their control signaling
message types and functions. These communicating entities play a key
role in the architecture, ensuring efficient communication between
microservices. The DMSC includes the following communication
entities:
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* Pod
* Service Gateway (SG)
* Service Prefixes Authentication (SPA)
* Service Router (SR)
* Service Mesh Communication Scheduling Center (SCSC)
The types and functions of control signaling messages required for
communication between entities are shown in Figure 3. The following
is an explanation of each signaling:
* Service Prefix Announcement: Type 1 signaling. This signaling is
used in microservices communication. The microservices in Pod
notifies the service prefix (namespace) it uses to the connected
service gateway (SG). Through this signaling, each Microservices
can notify the SG of the service prefix it uses to ensure that the
communication between microservices is correctly located and
identified.
* Service Prefix LSA (Link State Advertisement): Type 2 signaling.
The signaling type exchanged between SG and Service Router (SR),
used for advertising service prefixes and topology connection
relationships. Through this signaling, SG and SR can share the
service prefixes they can reach and their connection
relationships, thereby constructing a Link State Database (LSDB)
about service prefixes. This provides topology information for
routing decisions.
* Service Prefix Authentication: Type 3 signaling. This signaling
is used by the Service Gateway (SG) to send authentication
requests to the Service Prefix Authentication Entity (SPA). SG
requests SPA to verify the legality of the service prefix declared
by a Pod. After receiving the authentication request, SPA confirms
whether the requested service prefix is legal, thus enhancing the
security and reliability in the distributed Microservices
environment.
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* Service QoS Telemetry/Service QoS Policy: This is the signaling
type exchanged between SG, SR and Service Mesh Communication
Scheduling Center (SCSC), used to report the communication quality
between Microservices and customize the quality of service policy.
Through this signaling, SG and SR can automatically detect the
quality of target Microservices on a regular basis and report the
detection results to the SCSC. Based on these results, SCSC makes
decisions to adjust forwarding strategies, optimize traffic
routing, ensure that requests are processed quickly and reliably,
and maximize the utilization of available resources.
+----------------------------------------------------------------------+
| |Communication |Control Signaling| Control Signaling |
|Num | Entities | Message Types | Function |
+----------------------------------------------------------------------+
| | |Service Prefixes | Microservices within each Pod |
| 1 | Pod/SG | (Name Space) | communicate their used Service |
| | | Announcement | Prefix (Namespace) to the SG. |
+----------------------------------------------------------------------+
| | |Service Prefixes | SG and SR advertise the Service|
| 2 | SG/ SR | LSA | Prefix and topology link |
| | | | relationship they can reach. |
+----------------------------------------------------------------------+
| | |Service Prefixes |The SG authenticates to the SPA |
| 3 | SG/SPA | Authentication | requested by the Pod is legal. |
+----------------------------------------------------------------------+
| 4 |SG /SR |Service QoS |Communication quality |
| |and SCSC |Telemetry/Service| reporting policies |
| | | QoS Policy | between microservices. |
+----------------------------------------------------------------------+
Figure 3 Key communication message types and functions of DMSC
4.2. The key process of DMSC
The key process of the DMSC defined in this draft is as follows:
1) The Pod sends the notification signaling to the service gateway
(SG), and the notification signaling is used to notify the service
gateway linked to each of the pods of the service identification
information. The service identification information is the service
prefix or namespace of the pod, and the notification signaling is the
first signaling defined in the fourth section of the draft. When the
microservices Pod needs to send signaling to the service gateway or
other microservices, it can send corresponding packets or messages to
the target service gateway or microservices through gRPC calls.
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2) The Service Gateway (SG) sends an authentication request to the
Service Prefix Authentication entity (SPA) through service prefix
authentication signaling, which is used to authenticate whether the
service identification information requested by the Pod is legal. If
authentication fails, the service prefix authentication (SPA) entity
sends an authentication failure notification to the service gateway
(SG). If the authentication is passed, perform the operation of
sending service prefix LSA signaling from the service gateway (SG) to
the service router (SR).
3)Acting as the default gateway for the Pod hosting the service, the
Service Gateway (SG) absorbs and forwards all Service traffic emitted
from that Service Pod. When any microservices in the microservices
pod initiates a request or response, all communication traffic will
pass through the service gateway, which is responsible for processing
and forwarding it to the target microservices or external service.
The service gateway plays a key role in the Microservices Pod. It
acts as the entrance and exit of communication between all
microservices, ensuring the smoothness and reliability of
communication.
3) After the service prefix authentication (SPA) authentication is
passed, the service gateway sends service prefix LSA signaling to the
service router, which is used to notify the topology link
relationship and service identification information under various
interfaces of the service gateway linked to the Pod to the service
router.
4) The Service Gateway and Service Router (SR) exchange information
about the Service Prefixes they can reach and the interconnectivity
topology. Based on the preset algorithm and the topological link
relationship，each service gateway and each service router obtain a
forwarding information base (FIB) that based on the service
identification information, forwarding communication packets
according to the forwarding information base (FIB).
5) In order to ensure the quality and reliability of communication
between microservices, the service gateway needs to understand the
health and availability of each target Microservices. To this end,
the service gateway will send a detection signaling to each target
microservice, requiring it to self detect. Each service gateway
receives the detection results reported by the target Microservices,
and reports the detection results to the service mesh centralized
scheduling center. The Service Gateway and Service Router perform
traffic forwarding based on Service Prefixes and the service policies
distributed by the Service Mesh Scheduling Center.
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DMSC, a distributed architecture for microservices communication,
addresses the intricate communication demands among microservices in
the future, while encompassing all the critical functionalities
offered by existing centralized service networks.
5. The implementation of DMSC's key functions
Based on the DMSC, the key functions required for communication
between microservices are implemented as follows:
1) Service registration
The Pods send the Service identification information to the Service
Gateway (SG).The service identification information is the Service
Prefix or Namespace owned by the pod. The Service Gateway
facilitates proxy registration by utilizing Service Prefix
Announcements. This approach allows the Service Gateway to announce
the Service Prefixes it can reach, along with relevant information,
enabling other components or services to become aware of and register
with the appropriate Service Prefix.
2) Service discovery
The Microservices information is authenticated to the service prefix
authentication (SPA) through the service gateway (SG). After the
successful authentication through the service prefix authentication
(SPA), the synchronous distribution of Microservices information is
realized between the Service Gateway (SG) and the service router (SR)
through the distributed protocol. In this process, the Service
Gateway (SG) acts as the central node of authentication to achieve
secure and reliable communication between Microservices. The service
router (SR) plays a crucial role in facilitating the distribution of
these verified Microservices information, so as to achieve efficient
routing and seamless interaction between Microservices. In this
architecture, Service Prefix Authentication (SPA), Service Gateway
(SG) and Service Router (SR) jointly establish a powerful and
synchronized system, complete the work of agents in the traditional
service mesh architecture, and ensure the integrity and consistency
of Microservices communication in the distributed service mesh.
3) Service measurement
The service gateway (SG) detects the target Microservices regularly
and automatically according to the demand. The purpose of these
probes is to collect information and evaluate the availability of
target Microservices. The service gateway (SG) records the detection
results and reports them to the Service Mesh Communication Scheduling
Center (SCSC). If the detection result does not meet the preset
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conditions, the service mesh centralized scheduling center generates
forwarding policies based on the detection result, and issues the
forwarding policies to the service gateway and service router
corresponding to the paths of each target Microservices. The
detection results do not meet the preset conditions, including at
least one of the following:
* The bandwidth of the corresponding path of the target
Microservices is less than or equal to the preset bandwidth
threshold.
* The delay of the corresponding path of the target Microservices is
greater than or equal to the preset delay threshold.
* The jitter of the corresponding path of the target Microservices
is greater than or equal to the preset jitter threshold.
By actively and regularly detecting the target Microservices, the
service gateway (SG) ensures the latest and accurate assessment of
its status. This proactive approach can identify any potential
problems or exceptions, so that timely actions can be taken to ensure
the overall reliability and performance of Microservices.
4) Service scheduling
The Service Mesh Communication Scheduling Center (SCSC) utilizes the
quality detection results reported by various service gateways (SG)
to distribute customized forwarding policies to service gateways (SG)
and service routers (SR) on the communication path. These forwarding
policies aim to select the optimal service node from the
Microservices pool that provides the same function. By distributing
these customized forwarding policies throughout the entire service
mesh, the system can intelligently route traffic to the most capable
and efficient service node. This ensures that requests are directed
to Microservices that exhibit excellent performance, responsiveness,
and overall quality. The Service Mesh Communication Scheduling
Center (SCSC) plays a crucial role in coordinating the distribution
of these customized forwarding policies, ensuring effective
utilization of available resources by the network and optimizing
overall system performance. By making wise decisions based on the
quality detection results, the scheduling center enables the service
mesh to dynamically adjust and guide traffic to the most appropriate
Microservices, enhance the overall user experience, and maximize the
utilization of available resources.
Upon receiving requests from clients, the Service Mesh Communication
Scheduling Center (SCSC) employs a path selection algorithm, such as
Dijkstra's algorithm, to determine the optimal service path based on
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the target microservice and the current network topology. This
ensures that requests are routed through the shortest or most
efficient path from the client to the destination microservice. In
cases where a microservice's performance deteriorates or a service
node experiences a failure, the SCSC leverages the quality detection
results to adjust the forwarding strategy. By rerouting requests
away from the problematic microservice node and redirecting them to a
better-performing node, the SCSC ensures that requests are reliably
and efficiently handled. Moreover, during periods of high traffic
load or network congestion, the SCSC dynamically adapts the
forwarding strategy based on both the topology information and
quality detection results. This optimization allows the SCSC to
efficiently route traffic, ensuring that requests are promptly
processed even under challenging network conditions. By synergizing
topology information and quality detection results, the SCSC makes
intelligent routing decisions and dynamically adapts the forwarding
strategy. This approach guarantees that the service mesh's
communication flow is efficiently guided and managed, leading to
enhanced overall system performance and improved user experience.
In conclusion, the distributed architecture for microservice
communication defined in this draft depends on various components,
such as service gateway (SG), service router (SR) and Service Mesh
Communication Scheduling Center (SCSC). It realizes efficient and
reliable communication between Microservices by using service prefix
registration, service prefix authentication, quality detection and
customized forwarding policies. This architecture overcomes the
limitations of traditional centralized methods and provides improved
performance, scalability, and reliability. By using these components
and mechanisms, the system can effectively manage the complex
communication requirements of large-scale Microservices deployment,
and ensure the optimal routing of traffic, thus enhancing the overall
system performance and user experience.
6. The operation process of DMSC
The distributed architecture for microservices communication consists
of the multiple Pods, multiple service gateways, multiple service
routers, one Pod linked to one service gateway. The communication
process of DMSC is jointly completed by the control plane and the
forwarding plane. The control plane is responsible for managing and
controlling the policy, routing and security of Microservices
communication, while the forwarding plane is responsible for the
actual packet forwarding and flow control.
The communication process starts from the control plane, where
various components such as service gateway, service prefix
authentication, and service router interact through defined signaling
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types. For example, the service gateway can send an authentication
request to the service prefix authentication to verify whether the
Microservices has a legal service prefix. These signaling messages
are transmitted in the control plane to ensure Microservices
authentication, topology information collection and routing policy
distribution. In DMSC, the service gateway and the service router
use LSP to build the LSDB and generate the RIB (Routing Information
Base) based on the service prefix by routing protocol such as IS-IS.
In the data plane, service router downloads the preferred routes in
RIB to the FIB (Forwarding Information Base) and forwards data using
the FIB.
Once the components in the control plane complete coordination and
decision-making, the forwarding plane begins to take effect. When a
packet arrives at the service gateway, it selects the best path and
the next hop according to the rules in the Forwarding information
base (FIB) to forward the packet to the target Microservices. In
this way, the service gateway and service router can work together to
forward data packets along the optimal path, ensuring efficient
transmission and correct routing of traffic.
6.1. Control plane process
1) Service A located within Pod uses the defined type 1 signaling,
Service Prefixes (Name Space) Announcement, to notify the connected
Service Gateway (SG) of its service prefix or namespace. By adopting
this service prefix naming convention, each Microservice can
establish its unique identity.
2) When the Service Gateway (SG-1) receives a service prefix
notification, it initiates the verification process by sending an
authentication request to the Service Prefix Authentication (SPA)
unit using a defined signaling type (referred to as type 3
signaling). The purpose of this authentication request is to verify
and confirm that Pod indeed has the specified service prefix. By
participating in this authentication process, the service gateway
ensures that only legitimate Pods with authorized service prefixes
are granted access to the network. This robust authentication
mechanism adds an additional layer of security and integrity to
communication in the service mesh environment.
3) When the service gateway (SG-1) completes the authentication of
the service prefix, it will use type 2 signaling to communicate with
its connected service router (SR) to announce topology relationships
and service prefixes under each interface. By using this specific
signaling type, the Service Gateway (SG) transmits information about
the entire service mesh topology to the service router, including the
connection relationship between the service gateway and the service
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router, as well as the service prefix associated with each interface.
This notification process ensures that various components in the
service mesh can accurately understand the topological relationships
between each other, providing an important foundation for subsequent
traffic forwarding and service routing. In this way, the service
gateway and service router can work together to achieve intelligent
traffic management and routing decisions, thus providing efficient
and reliable Microservices communication.
4) Other microservices and service gateways will also adopt a similar
process for notification. They will communicate with the Service
Gateway (SG) and Service Router (SR) using the corresponding
signaling types to inform them of their service prefix information
and topology relationships. Through this notification process,
various components in the entire service mesh can understand each
other's existence and functionality, and establish a consistent
communication foundation.
5) After the Service Gateway (SG) receives Service Prefix LSA from
other components, a Link State Database (LSDB) is generated between
the Service Gateway and the Service Router based on the service
identification information and the topological link relationship.
Then, the service gateway and service router will run SPF algorithm
(Shortest Path First) for routing calculation to form the RIB. FIB
will be used to guide traffic forwarding and routing decisions,
ensuring that each service node can receive and forward traffic
according to the optimal path.
6.2. Forwarding plane process
In the DMSC, when Microservices Service A/1 needs to communicate with
Service B/4, the communication process is facilitated through the
service gateways (SG). The service gateways act as intermediaries
responsible for managing and controlling communication traffic in the
Microservices architecture.
1) Service A/1 initiates communication by invoking methods on Service
B/4 using the remote method invocation (RMI) pattern. The RMI
pattern enables seamless interaction between Microservices as if they
were co-located within the same process, regardless of their physical
location in the distributed environment.
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2)The communication message from Service A/1 is directed to the
default service gateway (SG-1). The service gateway (SG-1) and
service routers utilize the FIB to determine the next destination for
the communication message. The FIB contains forwarding rules and
microservice prefixes for guiding messages through the network.
Packet routing in DMSC is no longer based on traditional IP addresses
and ports, but on unique microservice prefixes.
3) The service gateway (SG-1) forwards the communication message to
subsequent service routers based on the FIB table's rules. Each
service router in the path takes a step-by-step approach, forwarding
the message closer to its destination. Ultimately, the communication
message reaches the service gateway (SG-4) associated with the
location of Service B/4.
4) Upon receiving the communication message, service gateway (SG-4)
processes it based on the information specified in the message,
directing it to the appropriate Pod where Service B/4 is located.
The same process is applied for backhaul traffic.
Through the above communication process, the DMSC realizes effective
cooperation between the control plane and the forwarding plane. The
control plane is responsible for managing and controlling the
strategy and routing of Microservices communication, while the
forwarding plane is responsible for actual packet forwarding and
traffic management. This layered architecture enables the system to
flexibly adapt to changing communication needs and provide reliable
communication services.
7. Conclusion
The Distributed Micro Service Communication architecture (DMSC)
addresses the fundamental limitations of traditional IP networks and
existing service meshes. Traditional IP networks rely on host-
centric communication, which struggles to meet modern demands, while
existing service meshes depend on centralized control planes,
limiting scalability and flexibility. DMSC is a distributed
communication architecture based on four types of communication
entities and utilizes content semantics for routing, breaking free
from the limitations of traditional IP networks and centralized
control planes. This architecture significantly enhances the
scalability, performance, and reliability of microservice
architectures, catering to the needs of cloud-native environments and
large-scale distributed systems. By enabling dynamic service
delivery, flexible routing, and efficient resource utilization, DMSC
provides an innovative solution for the transition of service mesh
infrastructure to a content- and service-centric paradigm.
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8. IANA Considerations
TBD
9. Acknowledgement
TBD
10. Contributors
The following people gave substantial contributions to the content of
this document and should be considered as coauthors:
Yue Wang
China Telecom
Email: wangy73@chinatelecom.cn
Yiqun Li
China Telecom
Email: liyiq6@chinatelecom.cn
Zhengguang Cui
China Telecom
Email: cuizg@chinatelecom.cn
11. Normative References
[Istio] L, Larsson., "Impact of etcd deployment on kubernetes,
istio, and application performance", 2020.
[microservice]
A, E., "Guiding architectural decision making on service
mesh based microservice architectures", September 2019.
[Microservices]
N, D., "Microservices: yesterday, today, and tomorrow",
2017.
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[RFC2119] Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119,
DOI 10.17487/RFC2119, March 1997,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc2119>.
[ServiceMesh]
Li, W., "Service mesh: Challenges, state of the art, and
future research opportunities", 2019.
Authors' Addresses
Xueting Li
China Telecom
Beiqijia Town, Changping District
Beijing
Beijing, 102209
China
Email: lixt2@foxmail.com
Aijun Wang
China Telecom
Beiqijia Town, Changping District
Beijing
Beijing, 102209
China
Email: wangaj3@chinatelecom.cn
Wei Wang
China Telecom
Beiqijia Town, Changping District
Beijing
Beijing, 102209
China
Email: weiwang94@foxmail.com
Dirk Kutscher
HKUST(GZ)
No. 1 Du Xue Road, Nan Sha District
Guangzhou
Guangdong,
China
Email: dku@ust.hk
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