This is the first in a series of three articles that reviews the development of the Istio open-source project (this article), shows how to optimize Istio performance, and describes Istio’s open-source ecosystem and future. I also share my view on the most appropriate use of eBPF with Istio, mostly in the second article.
Service mesh technology is on the rise due to the popularity of Kubernetes container management software, the use of microservices and the DevOps approach in application development and delivery, and the growing use of cloud native architectures. Istio is the leading service mesh software, nearly always implemented with Envoy as a sidecar proxy.
The rise of Kubernetes and programmable data proxies such as Envoy proxy create the foundation for Istio. The future of Istio is to further serve as the foundation for a secure, zero-trust network.