Modern applications don’t just send traffic in one direction. Requests move into systems from users, flow across internal services, and fan out across increasingly complex architectures. Understanding the difference between North–South and East–West traffic is essential for making sense of how modern networks actually behave. This guide breaks down both traffic patterns, shows how they differ in real-world environments like data centers and microservices, and explains why visualizing these flows matters for performance, security, and reliability today.
Modern networks generate far more traffic inside their boundaries than at the edges, and that internal flow is where things often go wrong. This guide explains what East–West traffic is, where it shows up in data centers, microservices, Kubernetes, and cloud networks, and why visualizing it is critical for performance, security, and observability. You’ll see real-world examples, common challenges teams face, and how network diagrams can turn hidden internal traffic into something clear, shareable, and easier to manage.
