Service Discovery Simulator — Interactive System Design Lab
Register services with a central registry, toggle instance health to simulate failures, and send requests to watch the full discovery flow step by step. Switch between client-side discovery (client queries registry directly and picks an instance) and server-side discovery (a load balancer handles lookup and routing) to understand how Netflix Eureka, Consul, and Kubernetes DNS differ in responsibility and complexity.
Kill service instances and watch the registry update — then compare client-side vs server-side discovery.
This free interactive simulation runs directly in your browser — no account needed. Adjust the parameters and watch how the system responds in real time.
Concepts covered
- service discovery
- service registry
- client-side discovery
- server-side discovery
- Consul
- Eureka
- microservices
- health check
- Kubernetes
Read the guide
- Service Discovery — How microservices find each other at runtime — without hardcoded IP addresses.
- Load Balancing — The unsung hero of scalability. It protects your servers from crushing load and gives you the freedom to fail without downtime.
- API Gateway — The bouncer, the receptionist, and the translator. It decouples your messy backend microservices from the clean public-facing API.