.NET Architecture & System Design Interview Question #112

What is service discovery?

Microservices, API Gateway, Service Communication & Event-Driven Architecture Mid-Level Intermediate

Quick Interview Answer

Service discovery allows applications to locate service instances without hard-coding individual server addresses. It is important when instances are created, replaced, or scaled dynamically.

Detailed Explanation

Service discovery allows applications to locate service instances without hard-coding individual server addresses. It is important when instances are created, replaced, or scaled dynamically.

Discovery may be client-side, server-side, or provided by an orchestration platform and internal DNS. Health information and load balancing are often integrated with the discovery mechanism.

Code Example

Orders Service instances:
10.0.0.4
10.0.0.8
10.0.0.12

Service discovery:
"orders" -> healthy instances