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Google has added Istio – an open source service mesh – to its enterprise Kubernetes Engine platform. This should make it easier for developers to manage their microservices, says Silicon Angle.

Kubernetes is used to make multiple clusters of containers in such a way that they can be reliably scaled up. However, Kubernetes is unable to manage the microservices inside the containers. That’s what Istio can do.

Istio makes it easier for developers to connect, manage, and secure microservices, says Eric Brewer, vice president of infrastructure at Google Cloud, and Eyal Manor, vice president of engineering at Google Cloud. This is important because microservices are actually disconnected components of apps, which means that they introduce new complexity challenges into the development process.

“There are now many collections of services, there is not just a single service in a few containers that Kubernetes has been working on,” says Brewer. “Istio manages collections of services: it authenticates one service to another and can make load shifting possible.”

Istio

Istio specifically eliminates the need to build the operational mechanisms needed to manage microservices in the code of the application. Instead, it sets up a connected layer between the individual modules, giving it the same purpose, without making major changes to the code.

Istio itself is managed by a set of programming controls that provide the ability to configure a load balancer for distributing traffic among application components. In addition, it has a failover function to help recovery after problems with apps. It is also possible to indicate exactly how data should flow through the network. And it helps set up and manage consistent policies.

Istio will be available next month in beta on Google Kubernetes Engine. This makes it possible to add a service mesh to the existing clusters and collect more telemetry data about them. Users can therefore monitor the health of these clusters via signals such as traffic and latency.

This news article was automatically translated from Dutch to give Techzine.eu a head start. All news articles after September 1, 2019 are written in native English and NOT translated. All our background stories are written in native English as well. For more information read our launch article.