---
layout: docs
page_title: Manage traffic for peered clusters on Kubernetes
description: >-
  Combine service resolver configurations with splitter and router configurations to manage L7 traffic in Consul on Kubernetes deployments with cluster peering connections. Learn how to define dynamic traffic rules to target peers for redirects in k8s. 
---

# Manage traffic for peered clusters on Kubernetes

This usage topic describes how to configure the `service-resolver` custom resource definition (CRD) to set up and manage L7 traffic between services that have an existing cluster peering connection in Consul on Kubernetes deployments.

For general guidance for managing L7 traffic with cluster peering, refer to [Manage L7 traffic with cluster peering](/consul/docs/manage-traffic/cluster-peering/k8s).

## Service resolvers for redirects and failover

When you use cluster peering to connect datacenters through their admin partitions, you can use [dynamic traffic management](/consul/docs/manage-traffic) to configure your service mesh so that services automatically forward traffic to services hosted on peer clusters.

However, the `service-splitter` and `service-router` CRDs do not natively support directly targeting a service instance hosted on a peer. Before you can split or route traffic to a service on a peer, you must define the service hosted on the peer as an upstream service by configuring a failover in a `service-resolver` CRD. Then, you can set up a redirect in a second service resolver to interact with the peer service by name.

For more information about formatting, updating, and managing configuration entries in Consul, refer to [How to use configuration entries](/consul/docs/fundamentals/config-entry).

## Configure dynamic traffic between peers

To configure L7 traffic management behavior in deployments with cluster peering connections, complete the following steps in order:

1. Define the peer cluster as a failover target in the service resolver configuration. 

  The following example updates the [`service-resolver` CRD](/consul/docs/reference/config-entry/service-resolver) in `cluster-01` so that Consul redirects traffic intended for the `frontend` service to a backup instance in peer `cluster-02` when it detects multiple connection failures.

  ```yaml
  apiVersion: consul.hashicorp.com/v1alpha1
  kind: ServiceResolver
  metadata:
    name: frontend
  spec:
    connectTimeout: 15s
    failover:
      '*':
        targets:
          - peer: 'cluster-02'
            service: 'frontend'
            namespace: 'default'
  ```

1. Define the desired behavior in `service-splitter` or `service-router` CRD.

  The following example splits traffic evenly between `frontend` and `frontend-peer`:

  ```yaml
  apiVersion: consul.hashicorp.com/v1alpha1
  kind: ServiceSplitter
  metadata:
    name: frontend
  spec:
    splits:
      - weight: 50
        ## defaults to service with same name as configuration entry ("frontend")
      - weight: 50
        service: frontend-peer
  ```

1. Create a second `service-resolver` configuration entry on the local cluster that resolves the name of the peer service you used when splitting or routing the traffic.

  The following example uses the name `frontend-peer` to define a redirect targeting the `frontend` service on the peer `cluster-02`:

  ```yaml
  apiVersion: consul.hashicorp.com/v1alpha1
  kind: ServiceResolver
  metadata:
    name: frontend-peer
  spec:
    redirect:
      peer: 'cluster-02'
      service: 'frontend'
  ```
