Enhancing Security and Performance of gRPC-Based Microservices using HTTP/3 and AES-256 Encryption

Abstract

Unlike previous studies focusing solely on transport-layer or encryption improvements, this research presents an integrated framework evaluated in real-world distributed settings. Secure and effective inter-process communication is crucial for a resilient microservices architecture in contemporary distributed systems. Although gRPC, which is based on HTTP/2, has become a high-performance framework, it still has issues with latency and security flaws, especially in mission-critical applications. By utilizing the strengths of HTTP/3, the QUIC transport protocol, and AES-256 encryption in conjunction with HMAC-based checksum verification, this study suggests an integrated framework that improves gRPC communication. Head-of-line blocking and excessive handshake latency are two known issues with HTTP/2 that are mitigated by HTTP/3, whereas AES-256 protects data integrity and confidentiality at the application layer. High-concurrency workloads are used to implement and assess the framework in a microservices system based on Kubernetes. Experimental results show a 15% improvement in throughput and a 20% reduction in latency compared to TLS 1.2 and standard HTTP/2, respectively — all without compromising security. For contemporary microservices, the suggested method offers a scalable, low-latency, and secure communication model that closes significant gaps between cryptographic assurance and performance.