Idit Levine, Founder/CEO Solo.io, talks about Istio, Ambient Mesh, Envoy, Zero-Trust Security, Cilium, eBPF, and Multi-Cloud. They discuss how Solo's new product, Ambient Mesh, simplifies the install and infrastructure costs of running Istio, making it more accessible to implement. The podcast also covers the origins of solo.io, the benefits of using Mesh Backplane Network (MBN), the future of service mesh, TOC members and relationships, teaching challenges, and the adoption of uni kernels and WebAssembly.
Ambient Mesh simplifies Istio installation and reduces infrastructure costs, making it more accessible and cost-efficient.
Solo.io initially focused on building a gateway for easier adoption of service mesh concepts before expanding to include Ambient Mesh.
Service mesh and API gateways are complementary technologies that enhance network security and traffic management.
Deep dives
Ambient Mesh: Simplifying Istio Install and Infrastructure Costs
Ambient Mesh, a product of Solo.io, is discussed in this episode of DevOps and Docker Talk. The guest, Edith Levine, the founder and CEO of Solo.io, talks about how Ambient Mesh simplifies the installation and infrastructure costs of running Istio. By reducing the number of proxies and parts running on each node of a Kubernetes cluster, Ambient Mesh aims to make Istio more accessible and cost-efficient. The focus is on making Istio adoption easier operationally, allowing application teams to concentrate on business logic without being burdened by the complexity of managing Istio. Ambient Mesh also offers improved security and observability for service mesh applications.
The Evolution of Solo.io and Service Mesh
In this episode, the history and origins of Solo.io are discussed, along with the evolution of service mesh technology. Edith Levine shares how Solo.io initially focused on building a gateway for easier adoption of service mesh concepts. As the market embraced service mesh and the challenges of managing microservices communication became apparent, Solo.io expanded its offerings to include ambient mesh, a simplified approach to running Istio. The interview highlights the importance of operational simplicity, cost efficiency, and improved security in mitigating the complexities of service mesh deployment.
Service Mesh and API Gateway: Similarities and Differences
The podcast explores the distinctions between service mesh and API gateway. While both address security, observability, and connectivity concerns in networking applications, API gateways are mainly used for external traffic management, authentication, and rate limiting. In contrast, service mesh technology is designed for managing internal traffic, particularly in microservices architectures, providing features such as service discovery, load balancing, and traffic routing. The episode emphasizes the importance of using both service mesh and API gateways to enhance network security and traffic management, further enabling organizations to maximize the benefits of these complementary technologies.
Benefits of Service Mesh for Microservices Architecture
Service mesh addresses the challenge of east-west traffic within a cluster, eliminating the need for traffic to leave the cluster and come back. This improves efficiency and simplifies application design decisions. Service mesh provides security and observability features, making it a valuable solution for companies adopting microservices. It is particularly useful for larger clusters with complex deployments and numerous services, helping to enhance visibility and understand what is happening in the system.
The Growing Adoption of Service Mesh and Future Outlook
Service mesh is experiencing increased adoption and is becoming as prevalent as Kubernetes. Its versatility attracts a diverse range of workloads, from containers to VMs and serverless functions. The recent release of the ambient mesh approach by Solo.io makes service mesh adoption even easier, improving developer experience and reducing infrastructure costs. Service mesh is seen as a key component for building secure, observable, and resilient architectures, with its use expected to expand across the three major cloud providers. Despite the emergence of other technologies, such as uni-kernels and web assembly, service mesh continues to gain traction due to its maturity and ability to address real-world problems.
Bret and Nirmal welcome Idit Levine, Founder/CEO Solo.io. Idit focuses on Service Mesh, API-GW and Multi-Cloud networking, and security.
Idit has been involved in the Containers/DevOps community for 10+ years, building products from Docker to Envoy to Kubernetes, and now Istio and Cilium. We talk about Istio, Ambient Mesh, Envoy, Zero-Trust Security, Cilium, eBPF, Multi-Cloud and more.
This is not the first time we've talked about Solo or Service Mesh. Ambient Mesh is Solo's new product that simplifies the install and infrastructure costs of essentially running Istio.
I'm really hopeful that this is going to help a lot more people implement Istio because traditionally, it does have a lot of parts and a lot of costs with the sidecar approach, but this new approach reduces the number of essentially proxies and parts that you're running on each node of your Kubernetes cluster.
Live recording of the complete show from June 29, 2023 is on YouTube (Ep. #223).
