How Does Kubernetes and Istio Work?

A short article that explains how Kubernetes and Istio work together to bring more resilience and observability to your applications.

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Kubernetes and Istio is a Great Combo.

They happily connect Pods in the cluster.

But why is istio even needed?

Because it improves resilience, security and helps with app observability.

To understand istio, you need to understand 2 things.

1. VirtualService.
2. DestinationRule.

VirtualService tells Istio how to direct the traffic.

The VirtualService config defines the following,

1. Send 95% of traffic to the 'old' subset.
2. The 'new' subset gets 5% of the traffic.

VistualService Config:

kind: VirtualService
metadata:
name: service-b-vs
spec:
hosts:
- Service-B
http:
- route:
- destination:
host: Service-B
subset: old
weight: 95
- destination:
host: Service-B
subset: new
weight: 5

DestinationRule directs where to go in Service-B.

In simple terms:

- 'old' means 'App 1.0'
- 'new' means 'App 2.0'

DestinationRule Config:

kind: DestinationRule
metadata:
name: service-b-dr
spec:
host: Service-B
subsets:
- name: old
labels:
App: "1.0"
- name: new
labels:
App: "2.0"

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I'm

Mutha Nagavamsi

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