Service traffic replication and dynamic policy enforcement in a multi-cloud service mesh

A computer system comprising:

• a Bit Index Explicit Replication (BIER) replicator node that is configured to implement a BIER protocol and is programmed to:
• receive an In-situ Operations, Administration, and Maintenance (iOAM) header that indicates a replicator policy;
• receive from a data source that implements an application layer micro-service, a multicast stream packet identifying a service-level multicast group address of a service-level multicast group;
• determine that the replicator policy indicates that the multicast stream packet is to be replicated;
• replicate the multicast stream packet according to the BIER protocol;
• and
• transmit two or more replicated multicast stream packets to two or more BIER receiver nodes that are configured to implement BIER;
• and
• the two or more BIER receiver nodes being programmed to transmit the two or more replicated multicast stream packets to two or more receivers.

One or more non-transitory computer-readable storage media storing one or more sequences of instructions which when executed using one or more processors causes performing:

• receiving, at a Bit Index Replication (BIER) replicator node that is configured to implement a BIER protocol, an In-situ Operations, Administration, and Maintenance (iOAM) header that indicates a replicator policy;
• receiving, at the BIER replicator node, from a data source that implements an application layer micro-service, a multicast stream packet identifying a service-level multicast group address of a service-level multicast group;
• determining that the replicator policy indicates that the multicast stream packet is to be replicated;
• replicating, via the BIER replicator node, the multicast stream packet according to the BIER protocol;
• transmitting, via the BIER replicator node, two or more replicated multicast stream packets to two or more BIER receiver nodes that are configured to implement BIER;
• and
• transmitting, via the two or more BIER receiver nodes, the two or more replicated multicast stream packets to two or more receivers.