HashiCorp Consul supports Microsoft’s new Service Mesh Interface

Microsoft has introduced the Service Mesh Interface (SMI), a specification for service meshes running on Kubernetes, aiming to standardize and enable flexibility and interoperability. SMI supports four primary functions: Traffic Specs, Traffic Access Control, Traffic Split, and Traffic Metrics. HashiCorp Consul will support the Traffic Access Control specification at launch, with possible integrations for others in the future. The company has developed a custom resource called TrafficTarget to assist with securing service-to-service traffic, enabling developers to define Consul Connect intentions using Kubernetes custom resources. By leveraging SMI and Consul, users can utilize Consul's capabilities inside Kubernetes environments more easily, extending its service mesh capabilities to hybrid or multi-cloud environments.