• A. Use Cloud Service Mesh with sidecar proxies to connect the application to the REST service.
Cloud Service Mesh (typically implemented with Istio on GKE) with sidecar proxies is the recommended approach for secure, multi-cluster service connectivity. The sidecar pattern provides features like load balancing, mutual TLS, and traffic management which are essential for connecting services across regions.
• E. Configure the REST service’s firewall to allow health checks originating from the GKE check probe’s IP ranges.
For proper health monitoring, the firewall rules must permit traffic from the known IP ranges used by the Kubernetes health check probes. This ensures that the health checks for the REST service succeed without exposing the service to unintended traffic.