Service Discovery

Definitions

1. The mechanism by which services in a distributed system automatically find and connect to each other without hardcoded addresses. Can be client-side (Consul, etcd) or server-side (Kubernetes DNS, AWS Cloud Map). Enables dynamic scaling and deployment.

   In plain English: A system that automatically keeps track of where all your services are running so they can find each other.

   Example: "When a new payment-service pod spins up, Kubernetes DNS registers it automatically — no config changes needed."

Related Terms

• Service Mesh
• Server
• DNS Record Types
• Communication Protocol
• Connection Manager
• Connection String
• Dynamic Proxy
• Handshake
• Network Interface
• Proxy
• Consul