IstioCon 2023 - Virtual

Ambient mesh is an innovative new deployment model for Istio service mesh that provides an alternative to traditional sidecars. The benefits have mostly focused on how ambient mesh provides the networking, security, and observability of Istio, but in a deployment that is less invasive and uses significantly fewer resources. In this presentation, we will focus on another benefit of the architecture.

We will discuss how ambient mesh’s deconstructed dataplane maps to traditional components in a network. Using this view, an ambient mesh can be built by extending existing cloud infrastructure components, which makes the mesh an integrated part of the network instead of introducing another layer of complexity. This new deployment model shifts the responsibility of maintaining and scaling the service mesh to the cloud provider so users can focus on building their applications.