Microsoft Corp. said today it has created a new open-source service mesh based on the Envoy proxy server, and that it’s planning to hand over control of the project to the Cloud Native Computing Foundation in a few weeks’ time.

The Open Service Mesh is designed to help companies deal with the complexity of managing microservices, which are the components of modern software applications. Microservices have emerged as a popular alternative to traditional, monolithic applications as they enable developers to break their apps down into smaller parts that can be altered or updated, without affecting other parts of the app. They enable developers to add new features and fix bugs much faster than the older method allows.

But managing all of those microservices and ensuring network traffic can flow smoothly between them is a complicated task, which is where the service mesh comes in.

Services meshes create an abstraction layer across networking environments that helps to make it easier to deploy microservices-based applications within them. They work by automatically routing application traffic across multiple network underlays, which does away with the need to configure each application service for a specific network.

There are several other service meshes fighting for relevance. The most famous is Google LLC’s Istio, but others, including Kong Inc.’s Kuma and Bouyant Inc.’s Linkerd, are also gaining traction.

In an interview with Protocol, Gabe Monroy, a director of product management at Microsoft Azure, said Open Service Mesh was designed to be a lighter-weight and easier to use version of Istio, which has proven to be notoriously complex to deploy and manage.

Monroy added that Open Service Mesh also plays nicely with Envoy, which is another important tool for microservices-based app development, and Kubernetes, which is open-source software that’s used to manage software containers, which host these modular applications.

Microsoft’s decision to hand over control of Open Service Mesh to the CNCF should help it to score points with the wider open-source community, which has been angered by Google’s decision not to do so with Istio.

Google had long promised to transfer control of Istio to the CNCF at some point, but a few weeks ago it reneged on that vow and instead said it will transfer its trademarks to a neutral organization it has created called Open Usage Commons. That decision upset many of Google’s partners, most notably IBM Corp., which has also contributed greatly to the development of Istio. Others complained the move was a secret way for Google to retain control over the future direction of Istio.

Constellation Research Inc. analyst Holger Mueller told SiliconANGLE that Microsoft built Open Service Mesh because it doesn’t want to leave the field open to Google, which has already created the de facto standard for container management with Kubernetes.

“There is room for competition in a new area like service mesh,” Mueller said. “The likely winner will be determined by power of spec and the API, ease of use and broad adoption.”

Image: Open Service Mesh