This research explores the implementation of Zero Trust security using the Istio service mesh in a microservices-based application deployed on a resource-constrained distributed edge cluster. While Zero Trust implementations offers enhanced security, their performance impact in edge environments remains underexplored. To address this gap, three configurations were evaluated under controlled load: a baseline with no security, a setup with mTLS and JWT authentication, and a full Zero Trust configuration including Attribute Based Access Control with OPA. Performance and resource utilization metrics were analyzed under low, medium, and high load conditions. Results showed that while the baseline scaled well with minimal latency, introducing Zero Trust mechanisms particularly OPA-based authorization significantly increased performance overhead, especially under higher loads. The findings highlight the trade-off between security and performance in resource-constrained edge environments and underscore the need for balanced design decisions when adopting Zero Trust in microservices architectures at the edge.
Zero Trust Architecture, Kubernetes, microservices security, mTLS, OPA, JWT, Istio service mesh, Attribute based access control, cybersecurity, Edge Computing, Distributed System
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