Consul is a service networking solution that enables teams to manage secure network connectivity between services and across on-prem and multi-cloud environments and runtimes. Consul offers service discovery, service mesh, traffic management, and automated updates to network infrastructure devices. You can use these features individually or together in a single Consul deployment.
Consul provides a control plane that enables you to register, query, and secure services deployed across your network. The control plane is the part of the network infrastructure that maintains a central registry to track services and their respective IP addresses. It is a distributed system that runs on clusters of nodes, such as physical servers, cloud instances, virtual machines, or containers.
Features include:
- Multi-Datacenter – Consul is built to be datacenter aware, and can support any number of regions without complex configuration.
- Service Mesh – Consul Service Mesh enables secure service-to-service communication with automatic TLS encryption and identity-based authorization. Applications can use sidecar proxies in a service mesh configuration to establish TLS connections for inbound and outbound connections with Transparent Proxy.
- API Gateway – Consul API Gateway manages access to services within Consul Service Mesh, allow users to define traffic and authorization policies to services deployed within the
- Service Discovery – Consul makes it simple for services to register themselves and to discover other services via a DNS or HTTP interface. External services such as SaaS providers can be registered as well.
- Health Checking – Health Checking enables Consul to quickly alert operators about any issues in a cluster. The integration with service discovery prevents routing traffic to unhealthy hosts and enables service level circuit breakers.
- Dynamic App Configuration – An HTTP API that allows users to store indexed objects within Consul, for storing configuration parameters and application metadata.
- Cross-platform support – runs under Linux, macOS, FreeBSD, Solaris, and Windows and includes an optional browser based UI.
Website: github.com/hashicorp/consul
Support:
Developer: HashiCorp, Inc.
License: Business Source License
Consul is written in Go. Learn Go with our recommended free books and free tutorials.
| Popular series | |
|---|---|
 | The largest compilation of the best free and open source software in the universe. Each article is supplied with a legendary ratings chart helping you to make informed decisions. |
 | Hundreds of in-depth reviews offering our unbiased and expert opinion on software. We offer helpful and impartial information. |
 | The Big List of Active Linux Distros is a large compilation of actively developed Linux distributions. |
 | Replace proprietary software with open source alternatives: Google, Microsoft, Apple, Adobe, IBM, Autodesk, Oracle, Atlassian, Corel, Cisco, Intuit, SAS, Progress, Salesforce, and Citrix |
 | Awesome Free Linux Games Tools showcases a series of tools that making gaming on Linux a more pleasurable experience. This is a new series. |
 | Machine Learning explores practical applications of machine learning and deep learning from a Linux perspective. We've written reviews of more than 40 self-hosted apps. All are free and open source. |
 | New to Linux? Read our Linux for Starters series. We start right at the basics and teach you everything you need to know to get started with Linux. |
 | Alternatives to popular CLI tools showcases essential tools that are modern replacements for core Linux utilities. |
 | Essential Linux system tools focuses on small, indispensable utilities, useful for system administrators as well as regular users. |
 | Linux utilities to maximise your productivity. Small, indispensable tools, useful for anyone running a Linux machine. |
 | Surveys popular streaming services from a Linux perspective: Amazon Music Unlimited, Myuzi, Spotify, Deezer, Tidal. |
 | Saving Money with Linux looks at how you can reduce your energy bills running Linux. |
 | Home computers became commonplace in the 1980s. Emulate home computers including the Commodore 64, Amiga, Atari ST, ZX81, Amstrad CPC, and ZX Spectrum. |
 | Now and Then examines how promising open source software fared over the years. It can be a bumpy ride. |
 | Linux at Home looks at a range of home activities where Linux can play its part, making the most of our time at home, keeping active and engaged. |
 | Linux Candy reveals the lighter side of Linux. Have some fun and escape from the daily drudgery. |
 | Getting Started with Docker helps you master Docker, a set of platform as a service products that delivers software in packages called containers. |
 | Best Free Android Apps. We showcase free Android apps that are definitely worth downloading. There's a strict eligibility criteria for inclusion in this series. |
 | These best free books accelerate your learning of every programming language. Learn a new language today! |
 | These free tutorials offer the perfect tonic to our free programming books series. |
 | Linux Around The World showcases usergroups that are relevant to Linux enthusiasts. Great ways to meet up with fellow enthusiasts. |
 | Stars and Stripes is an occasional series looking at the impact of Linux in the USA. |