Istio Architecture#
I remember, when I was a kid, I liked to take apart and put back together any electrical appliance - radio, CD player, computer. But there is always a magical ability to integrate the disassembled things back, and then, understand its structure. However, when I look at my children’s generation, I don’t think they have the interest or opportunity to do that at all… Think about it… What kind of kid would take a ipad apart… And even if they did, the components are so small and sophisticated that they can’t see the mechanism. It’s hard to find people who are self-driven learners now.
Technological learning, like learning the mechanics of radio, has two directions:
From big to small (or top-down)
From the whole, look at functionality, architectural components, component relationships, external interfaces, and data flow. Such as an HTTP request traveling through the Istio architecture.
From small to large (or bottom up, or bottom to top)
For example:
iptable / netfilter / conntrack for Istio sidecar traffic interception.
Envoy HTTP Filter / Route for Istio Destination Rule and Istio Virtual Service.
But in most cases, it’s a combination of these two methods.