Technology · Ebook

Sermant: A Proxyless Service Mesh for Java

by Shriira Press

Sermant is a CNCF sandbox project that brings service-mesh governance to Java microservices without the usual sidecar proxy. Instead of routing every request through a companion Envoy container, Sermant attaches a Java agent that rewrites bytecode at startup, injecting registry, routing, flow control, and observability directly into the process — no code changes, lower latency, lower cost. This book opens with the proxyless idea, then unpacks the Java agent and its class isolation, the framework core every plugin builds on, the plugin ecosystem that delivers real governance, the Sermant Backend and dynamic configuration, how Sermant speaks xDS to an Istio control plane, and where it fits in the cloud-native landscape.

Contents

1. 1Preface
2. 2Chapter 1 — The Proxyless Idea
3. 3Chapter 2 — Inside the Java Agent
4. 4Chapter 3 — The Framework Core
5. 5Chapter 4 — The Plugin Ecosystem
6. 6Chapter 5 — The Backend and Dynamic Configuration
7. 7Chapter 6 — Speaking xDS to Istio
8. 8Chapter 7 — Sermant in Practice