Cloud applications built with microservices and packaged in containers (a virtual method for running distributed applications) can get mighty busy as all the moving parts cling and clang against each other. Open-source platform Istio is a service mesh that connects, manages and secures microservices that a growing number of harried developers rely on to control the chaos.

Though service mesh is a fairly new weapon in the war on microservices complexity, it’s getting traction quickly, according to Tom Davies (pictured, left), senior manager/architect of DevNet Sandbox at Cisco Systems Inc.

“It’s common, because as people use microservices more, they’re understanding that they just proliferate like crazy,” Davies said. “It’s actually really quite hard to understand which microservices is talking to which microservices. Are they doing it securely? Are they within policy? Are they talking to the right thing? And that’s where Istio comes in.”

Davies and colleague Mandy Whaley (pictured, right), director of developer experience of DevNet at Cisco, broke down Istio’s appeal in an interview with John Furrier (@furrier) and Stu Miniman (@stu), co-hosts of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s mobile livestreaming studio, during the Cisco Live event in Barcelona, Spain. (* Disclosure below.) 

Istio abstracts; NetDevOps teaches network engineers new tricks

Istio basically provides a proxy for all that microservice traffic, so developers can easily get microservice A and microservice B “talking” and understand what is taking place between the traffic so that they can better control it, Davies explained. A single microservice may have 15 different subserving microservices around it. Istio can abstract those 15 extras away, so that developers don’t have to manage or operate them. Bringing 15 down to one can make working with micrroservices enormously easier for developers.

Cisco is currently collaborating with Google LLC on Istio and provides an Istio sandbox in its DevNet developer community.

DevNet is also pushing network as code and NetDevOps, which brings DevOps (developer operations) agility to networking.

“We see some network engineers who think, ‘I have to learn a lot of new skills to do this.’ And that is true, but you don’t have to be at the level of an application developer who’s writing applications to do some automation and scripting,” Whaley said. “And DevNet’s really working to put the tools out there to lead them down that path and get them moving in that direction.”

Watch the complete video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of Cisco Live Barcelona 2018. (* Disclosure: Cisco Systems Inc. sponsored this segment of theCUBE. Neither Cisco Systems Inc. nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE