VMware has announced the acquisition of Mesh7, a secure gateway of micro-APIs for contemporary applications. The Mesh7 addition adds to the Tanzu Kubernetes platform through a secure API management suite. It contributes to Tanzu Service Mesh by protecting external APIs that are open by the microservices running in the Tanzu Kubernetes Grid.
VMware gets Mesh7
VMware
What is Mesh7?
Mesh7 is a young, small startup based in Sunnyvale, Bay Area. Founded by Amit Jain and Pratik Roychowdhury, the company has built a dedicated API gateway that keeps microservices running in VMs and Kubernetes.
Originally known as Kavach, the company received support and assistance from The Fabric, a startup accelerator and VC company in the Bay Area. In 2019, Splunk Ventures invested $ 150 million in Mesh7, which helped the startup add new capabilities to the platform. In addition to The Fabric and Splunk, Juniper Networks and March Capital have invested in Mesh7.
In a crowded market of API gateways and service mesh, Mesh7 differentiates itself by focusing on network security at layer7, which is dependent on the associated inbound and outbound traffic. the basic microservices.
Mesh7 differs from mainstream service mesh technologies such as Istio, Linkerd and Trafaek, which handle communications within a service known as eastbound traffic. It compares to traditional gateway API offerings from Kong, Apigee and Mulesoft that handle the north-south traffic. Mesh7 is a state-of-the-art API gateway built from the ground up to secure the architecture of contemporary microservices, making it unique.
The Mesh7 platform goes beyond simple API management. It delivers self-detection on microservices by keeping the traffic flowing in and out of the application. Because it is visible into the traffic, Mesh7 provides rich visibility of API interactions. Its secure firewall protects the applications from threats and attacks and detects and retrieves sensitive PII data such as social security numbers and credit card details. The platform reduces machine learning and artificial intelligence to deliver a context-sensitive, multi-telemetry-based model engine specifically for microservices.
Mesh7 is based on Envoy, a popular open source agent used in Istio and other service mesh projects.
Why did VMware own mogal7?
Since the acquisition of Nicera, VMware has been adding software-defined network features to its stack. With the introduction of Tanzu, VMware expanded NSX-T to deliver end-to-end service mesh capabilities to both VMs and vessels. Identified as Tanzu Service Mesh, the platform provides secure communication, visibility, and policy-based traffic to microservices running in vSphere and Kubernetes.
Tanzu Service Mogal is compared to Istio and Linkerd, which are popular in terms of service implementation. With NSX’s strong foundation, VMware chose to build its own service hub rather than integrating an open source project like Istio.
While Tanzu Service Mesh is designed to handle the traffic of east-west microservices, there is no secure API gateway that can be integrated with the Kubernetes incoming facility. An incoming facility in Kubernetes is responsible for exposing the microservice APIs to the outside world.
Mesh7 complements and enhances the Tanzu Service Mesh by enhancing service detection, security, and visibility through a mini-fire connected to the Ingress. Interestingly, both Tanzu Service Mesh and Mesh7 are based on the same Envoy proxy, making it easy to integrate the data plane.
In summary, Tanzu Service Mesh will be responsible for internal service communication, while Mesh7 will handle the inter-service communication coming from external sources. This is going to be a deadly mix for Tanzu to deliver end-to-end network security and visibility. The telemetry created from Mesh7 can be integrated into vRealize Log Insight to give customers a rich view and insight.
Red Hat, VMware’s closest competitor, is supporting Istio’s service mesh project that is tightly tied to its container platform, OpenShift. In 2016, Red Hat acquired 3scale, an API management company, to add API gateway capabilities to OpenShift. The combination of Istio and 3scale is comparable to the combination of Tanzu Service Mesh and Mesh7.
Mesh7 is a strategic purchase for VMware that fills a critical gap in Tanzu’s portfolio.