Solo.io Inc. today announced the general availability of Gloo Mesh Enterprise, a platform it has developed to help enterprises build and maintain software container applications more easily.

Containerized applications usually comprise of multiple modules. Those modules need a channel for communicating with one another: An e-commerce platform’s catalog component, for example, must fetch item descriptions from the inventory management component. Solo.io’s Gloo Mesh Enterprise platform allows companies to set up a virtual networking layer that an application’s modules can use to communicate. 

Gloo Mesh Enterprise implements that networking layer in the form of a so-called service mesh. A service mesh is a piece of software that a company can embed into an application to orchestrate the flow of data between its components and perform related tasks, such as performance tracking. Service mesh technology is seeing rapid adoption in the enterprise because it’s more convenient than traditional networking approaches.

That strong adoption is part of the reason investors have backed Solo.io with more than $30 million in funding to date. Other service mesh startups, such as San Francisco-based Buoyant Inc., have also raised funding in recent years. 

According to Solo.io, Gloo Mesh Enterprise provides management features that allow administrators to set up service meshes for their companies’ applications and maintain them on a day-to-day basis. Users have access to configuration tools, as well as a monitoring console to track the status of their deployments. There are also security controls that make it possible to regulate how different employees may interact with service mesh infrastructure.

To accommodate enterprises with more advanced requirements, Solo.io has made Gloo Mesh Enterprise customizable. A company’s developers can write software modules to tailor the behavior of a service mesh for each project. Those modules can be deployed with WebAssembly, a technology that makes it possible to run code in cloud environments with a high level of efficiency. 

“The release of Gloo Mesh Enterprise follows on the heels of an extremely successful beta program with over 2,000 requests for participation, 400 developers engaging through the Solo.io beta Slack channel and over 800 stars on GitHub during this program,” Solo.io Chief Executive Idit Levine (pictured) said in a blog post today. 

Photo: SiliconANGLE