How does Tyk work with a service mesh?

Tyk integrates with a service mesh, such as Istio, by functioning as the sole ingress point within the mesh, allowing it to serve as a higher-level abstraction for API management (APIM) tasks while leveraging the service mesh for network-level functions. Tyk is configured to forward all ingress traffic to its gateway, which then manages API tasks, while Istio handles inter-service communication, load balancing, and managing multiple service versions. Tyk’s Universal Data Graph further enhances this setup by enabling the integration of data from multiple services within the service mesh into a single GraphQL facade. The overall goal is to highlight that APIM, which addresses documentation, discovery, and monitoring of APIs, and service meshes, which focus on network-level challenges, solve distinct problems but can be effectively used together to manage microservices environments.