Service Mesh Without the Complexity Tax

Get the benefits of a service mesh without the operational burden that makes teams regret adopting one.

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Trusted and top rated tech team

Control traffic without code changes

Service meshes promise traffic management, security, and observability between services. They also have a reputation for complexity that scares teams away. We implement meshes that deliver on the promise without the operational burden, giving you control over east-west traffic without scattering retry logic and timeout handling across application code.

Our capabilities include:

Service mesh architecture and selection
Sidecar proxy deployment and configuration
Traffic routing and canary deployments
Mutual TLS and zero-trust security
Distributed tracing and mesh observability
Migration from code-based service communication

Who we support

As microservices multiply, the communication between them becomes the hardest thing to manage. We help teams get control of service-to-service traffic without creating more work for ops.

Teams With Growing Microservices

Every new service adds more point-to-point connections to manage. Retry logic, timeouts, and circuit breakers are scattered across codebases or missing entirely. A mesh layer handles it consistently so your code stays focused on business logic.

Organizations With Security Gaps

Traffic between services runs unencrypted. Access controls are inconsistent or nonexistent. Mutual TLS and identity-based policies secure east-west communication without developers configuring certificates manually.

Companies With No Internal Visibility

You can trace requests to the edge but lose them once they're inside. Failures cascade and nobody knows where they started. Mesh observability shows exactly how services communicate and where things break.

Ways to engage

We offer a wide range of engagement models to meet our clients’ needs. From hourly consultation to fully managed solutions, our engagement models are designed to be flexible and customizable.

Staff Augmentation

Get access to on-demand product and engineering team talent that gives your company the flexibility to scale up and down as business needs ebb and flow.

Retainer Services

Retainers are perfect for companies that have a fully built product in maintenance mode. We'll give you peace of mind by keeping your software running, secure, and up to date.

Project Engagement

Project-based contracts that can range from small-scale audit and strategy sessions to more intricate replatforming or build from scratch initiatives.

We'll spec out a custom engagement model for you

Invested in creating success and defining new standards

At Curotec, we do more than deliver cutting-edge solutions — we build lasting partnerships. It’s the trust and collaboration we foster with our clients that make CEOs, CTOs, and CMOs consistently choose Curotec as their go-to partner.

Helping a Series B SaaS company refine and scale their product efficiently

Why choose Curotec for service mesh?

Our engineers implement meshes that teams actually adopt. We select the right mesh for your environment, configure it for your traffic patterns, and set up observability so you see the value immediately. You get control over service communication without a steep learning curve or dedicated mesh ops team.

1 Extraordinary people, exceptional outcomes

Our outstanding team represents our greatest asset. With business acumen, we translate objectives into solutions. Intellectual agility drives efficient software development problem-solving. Superior communication ensures seamless teamwork integration.

2 Deep technical expertise

We don’t claim to be experts in every framework and language. Instead, we focus on the tech ecosystems in which we excel, selecting engagements that align with our competencies for optimal results. Moreover, we offer pre-developed components and scaffolding to save you time and money.

3 Balancing innovation with practicality

We stay ahead of industry trends and innovations, avoiding the hype of every new technology fad. Focusing on innovations with real commercial potential, we guide you through the ever-changing tech landscape, helping you embrace proven technologies and cutting-edge advancements.

4 Flexibility in our approach

We offer a range of flexible working arrangements to meet your specific needs. Whether you prefer our end-to-end project delivery, embedding our experts within your teams, or consulting and retainer options, we have a solution designed to suit you.

Mesh capabilities that don't slow you down

Envoy Proxy Tuning

Configure proxy settings for your traffic patterns so the mesh adds control without adding latency to every request.

Canary Release Automation

Shift traffic percentages to new versions automatically based on error rates and latency so bad deploys get caught early.

Certificate Rotation

Automate mTLS certificate lifecycle so encryption stays current without manual intervention or service restarts.

Service Dependency Mapping

Visualize how services connect and communicate so your team understands the topology before making changes.

Circuit Breaker Policies

Define failure thresholds that stop cascading outages by isolating unhealthy services before they take down others.

Mesh Performance Baselining

Measure latency overhead from the mesh layer so you know exactly what the control plane costs and where to optimize.

Tools and technologies for managing the mesh

Service Mesh Platforms

Our engineers implement mesh platforms that match your environment, traffic patterns, and operational capabilities.

Istio — Feature-rich open-source mesh with traffic management, security, and observability for Kubernetes environments

Linkerd

Consul Connect — HashiCorp mesh that works across Kubernetes, VMs, and bare metal with built-in service discovery
Cilium Service Mesh — eBPF-powered mesh that provides sidecarless networking with lower latency and resource usage
Open Service Mesh — CNCF sandbox project implementing the Service Mesh Interface spec for lightweight Kubernetes deployments
Kuma — Envoy-based mesh from Kong that runs on Kubernetes and VMs with multi-zone federation support

Sidecar Proxies & Data Plane

Curotec configures the proxy layer that intercepts traffic and enforces policies without changing application code.

Envoy Proxy — High-performance proxy used by Istio and other meshes for traffic interception, routing, and observability
Linkerd2-proxy — Rust-based ultralight proxy designed for Linkerd with minimal latency and memory footprint
NGINX Service Mesh — NGINX-based data plane for teams already familiar with NGINX configuration and operations
HAProxy — Battle-tested load balancer that can serve as a mesh data plane with advanced traffic handling
Cilium eBPF — Kernel-level networking that bypasses sidecars for lower overhead and faster packet processing
MOSN — Cloud-native proxy written in Go with support for multiple protocols and extensible filter chains

Traffic Management & Routing

We set up routing rules, traffic splitting, and load balancing so deployments happen gradually and safely.

Istio VirtualService — Routing rules for traffic splitting, header-based routing, and canary deployments across service versions
Istio DestinationRule — Connection pool settings, load balancing policies, and outlier detection for destination services
Linkerd TrafficSplit — SMI-compliant resource for shifting traffic percentages between service versions during rollouts
Flagger — Progressive delivery operator that automates canary releases with metric analysis and automatic rollback
Argo Rollouts — Kubernetes controller for blue-green and canary deployments with traffic management integration
SMI Traffic Specs — Service Mesh Interface standards for portable traffic policies across different mesh implementations

Security & Certificate Management

Our teams implement mTLS, certificate rotation, and access policies that secure service communication automatically.

SPIFFE/SPIRE — Identity framework for workload authentication with automatic certificate issuance and rotation
cert-manager — Kubernetes certificate management that automates issuance and renewal from multiple certificate authorities
Istio Citadel — Built-in certificate authority for Istio that handles mTLS certificate lifecycle automatically
HashiCorp Vault — Secrets management with PKI engine for issuing and rotating service certificates at scale
Open Policy Agent — Policy engine for fine-grained access control between services based on identity and context
Authz policies — Mesh-native authorization rules that control which services can communicate based on identity

Mesh Observability & Tracing

Curotec integrates tracing and metrics collection so you see exactly how traffic flows between services.

Jaeger — Distributed tracing platform for visualizing request paths across services and identifying latency bottlenecks
Kiali — Observability console for Istio with service graphs, traffic flow visualization, and configuration validation
Grafana — Dashboards for mesh metrics including request rates, error percentages, and latency distributions across services
Prometheus — Metrics collection from mesh proxies for monitoring service health, traffic volume, and error rates
Zipkin — Distributed tracing system for collecting timing data and visualizing service dependencies
Lightstep — Observability platform with deep trace analysis for debugging complex service-to-service interactions

Cloud Provider Mesh Services

We deploy managed mesh offerings from AWS, Azure, and GCP that reduce operational overhead for cloud-native teams.

AWS App Mesh — Managed mesh service that integrates with ECS, EKS, and EC2 using Envoy proxy for traffic control
Azure Service Mesh — Istio-based add-on for AKS with simplified installation and Azure Monitor integration
Google Cloud Service Mesh — Managed Istio on GKE with built-in observability through Cloud Trace and Cloud Monitoring
AWS Cloud Map — Service discovery that integrates with App Mesh for automatic endpoint registration and health checking
Azure Traffic Manager — DNS-based routing that complements mesh traffic policies for multi-region deployments
GKE Gateway Controller — Kubernetes Gateway API implementation for unified ingress and mesh traffic management

FAQs about our service mesh services

Do we really need a service mesh?

It depends on scale and complexity. If you have a handful of services, code-based communication works fine. Once you’re managing dozens of services with different teams, handling security, retries, and observability consistently becomes harder than adopting a mesh.

Which service mesh should we use?

Istio has the most features but the highest complexity. Linkerd is simpler and lighter. Consul works well in mixed environments with VMs and containers. Cilium reduces overhead with eBPF. We help you evaluate based on your environment and operational capacity.

How much latency does a mesh add?

Sidecar proxies add some overhead, typically 1-3ms per hop. For most applications, this is negligible. Cilium’s sidecarless approach reduces it further. We baseline performance before and after so you see the actual impact.

Can we adopt a mesh gradually?

Yes. We start with non-critical services to prove the pattern, then expand. You don’t have to mesh everything at once. Gradual adoption lets your team build familiarity without a risky big-bang migration.

How is a service mesh different from an API gateway?

API gateways manage north-south traffic from external clients to your backend. Service meshes manage east-west traffic between internal services. Most architectures need both, handling external requests at the edge and internal communication in the mesh.

What if we already have retry logic in our code?

That’s common. We migrate traffic policies to the mesh layer incrementally so you can remove code-based handling as the mesh takes over. Your application code gets simpler while the mesh handles communication concerns consistently.

Ready to have a conversation?

We’re here to discuss how we can partner, sharing our knowledge and experience for your product development needs. Get started driving your business forward.