{"id":879,"date":"2023-03-31T10:52:32","date_gmt":"2023-03-31T10:52:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/imesh.ai\/blog\/?p=879"},"modified":"2023-10-19T10:30:35","modified_gmt":"2023-10-19T10:30:35","slug":"how-to-get-started-with-istio-in-kubernetes-in-5-steps","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/imesh.ai\/blog\/how-to-get-started-with-istio-in-kubernetes-in-5-steps\/","title":{"rendered":"How to get started with Istio in Kubernetes in 5 steps"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Applications nowadays are distributed as microservices all over the cloud. Organizations use Kubernetes to manage these applications at scale, which has brought great flexibility and agility for development teams.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, microservices and multicloud applications have given rise to new challenges. Now, it is harder to configure communication between distributed services and secure the data in transit. So it is inevitable for organizations to use service mesh, specifically Istio. In this blog, we will briefly look at what Istio is and then see how to install Istio in Kubernetes in just 5 steps.<\/p>\n\n\n

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What is Istio service mesh?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Istio is a popular open-source service mesh implementation platform, which simplifies and secures communication between microservices in the cloud. Istio abstracts the network and security layer from the application and applies them from an infrastructure layer. It provides some major benefits, such as traffic management, security, and observability, for better control and visibility into the traffic flow between microservices.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Istio has two major components: a control plane and a data plane (refer to fig. A below). The data plane comprises a network of L4 and L7 proxies called Envoy<\/a>, which intercepts and facilitates communication between services. Envoy proxy<\/a> is injected as a sidecar to each application deployed in the mesh. The control plane acts as a centralized layer to manage and configure these data plane proxies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Istio<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Fig. A – Istio sidecar architecture<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

To learn more about Istio and delve into its architecture, features, and benefits, check out this blog: What is Istio Service Mesh | IMESH<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now, let us move on to how to deploy Istio in Kubernetes and see what the prerequisites are at first.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Prerequisite<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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  1. Kubernetes cluster v1.23 or later. The version used for implementation: v1.26.0<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  2. Download Istio in a folder<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n

    You can download the latest Istio version by going to this path based on your OS: https:\/\/github.com\/istio\/istio\/releases\/<\/a>. For this demo, I have downloaded Istio 1.17.1 for Windows.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \"download<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

    Once you download the zip file, extract it, and you will see the following files in Istio 1.17.1 folder:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \"Istio<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

    After successfully extracting Istio files, open CMD and change the directory into the folder where the Istio files are extracted, to install it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Note: <\/strong>Ensure <extracted Istio files root folder>\/bin is in the terminal path environment variable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Watch the demo on how to install Istio in 10 mins<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

    If you prefer watching the demo rather than reading through this blog, click on the below video to learn how to install Istio in 10 minutes:<\/p>\n\n\n\n