AI Inference Service Mesh

Apply Istio/Linkerd mesh controls to secure and optimize east-west AI traffic across inference microservices.

Why Mesh for AI

• Enforce mTLS between gateway, retriever, reranker, and model services
• Apply fine-grained traffic policies without app code changes
• Run progressive delivery for model-serving backends
• Observe latency hops for retrieval + generation chains
• Route inference requests by model version, tenant, or priority tier
• Protect expensive GPU-backed services from cascading failures

Prerequisites

Confirm the exact cluster/context, mesh version, CRD schemas, owned namespace and authorized mutation scope. Examples are alternative fragments, not a manifest to apply wholesale: multiple DestinationRules for the same host must be consolidated under the installed version's merge rules. Preview and validate in a disposable environment; protect production routes and rollback evidence.