we have the same issue with HTTP as well, due to HTTP keepalive, which many clients have out-of-the box.

the "impact" can be reduced by configuring an overall connection-ttl, so it takes some time when new pods come up but it works out over time.

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that said, i'm not surprised that even a company as large as databricks feels that adding a service mesh is going to add operational complexity.

looks like they've taken the best parts (endpoint watch, sync to clients with xDS) and moved it client-side. compared to the failure mode of a service mesh, this seems better.