The Cloud Native Management Plane

Meshery Maintainers

Community-first�Sustainable open governance, not just open source

Stats�

• 1,800+ Slack community
• 900+ Meshery users
• 550+ Twitter followers
• 850+ stars, 100+ releases
• 3,700+ performance tests collected

300+ contributors�15 maintainers across different organizations:��Layer5, Red Hat, Rackspace, Intel, Quantex, Lumina Networks, VMware, Citrix, Octarine, HashiCorp, Independent, Microsoft, Google

Newcomer Onboarding Program

#1 Most Popular Project in Linux Foundation Mentorship Program

Layer5 communities:

• Forming now in Nigeria, India, Mexico, Guatemala
• Forming soon in El Salvador and France

Service Mesh Landscape

A Multi-Mesh World

Diverse microservices patterns and technologies, together with the requirements of given microservice applications, provide myriad opportunities for service mesh differentiation and specialization — including meshes native to specific cloud platforms. This will lead to a world where many enterprises use multiple service mesh products, whether separately or together.

Source: With Microservices, A Service Mesh Helps Developers Focus On The Business, Forrester, Oct. 2019

”

“

“...infrastructure diversity is

reality for many enterprises.”

It’s meshy out there�Infrastructure diversity is reality for enterprises

• Open source governance dictates a world of multiple meshes.�
• Huge range of microservice patterns drives service mesh opportunity.
• Open source projects and vendors create features to serve microservice patterns (they splinter the landscape and function differently).�
• Different organizations need different scopes of service mesh functionality.�
• Hybrid drives infrastructure diversity.
• Accommodate hybrid workloads - non-containerized workloads need to integrate and benefit from your service mesh as well.

These factors drive service mesh diversity:

Its a multi-mesh world with a landscape of 20+ service meshes.

​

layer5.io/landscape

Service mesh standards to the rescue�Meshery is compatible with all three

A standard interface for service meshes on Kubernetes.

A set of API standards for enabling service mesh federation.

Service Mesh Interface (SMI)

Multi-Vendor Service Mesh Interoperation (Hamlet)

Microsoft

VMware

A format for describing and capturing service mesh performance.

​

Service Mesh Performance (SMP)

Layer5

Meshery�the SMI Conformance Tool

Meshery�an implementation of SMP

Meshery

and ecosystem projects

The service mesh management plane�Service meshes will be ubiquitous. Different service meshes will be deployed.

A service mesh

The service mesh management plane

Multi-Mesh Management

✔︎ Lifecycle

✔︎ Workload

✔︎ Performance

✔︎ Configuration

✔︎ Patterns and Practices

✔︎ Chaos and Filters

​

Supports:

• Citrix Service Mesh
• Containous Maesh
• HashiCorp Consul
• Istio
• Linkerd
• Octarine
• Open Service Mesh
• Network Service Mesh
• NGINX Service Mesh
• Traefik Mesh�---
• AWS App Mesh
• VMware Tanzu SM

Working with each service mesh project to incorporate Meshery into their release process as the measure of their adherence to service mesh standards.

Supports:

• Citrix Service Mesh
• HashiCorp Consul
• Istio
• Kuma
• Linkerd
• Network Service Mesh
• NGINX Service Mesh
• Octarine
• Open Service Mesh
• Traefik Mesh�---
• VMware NSX-SM
• AWS App Mesh

Adapters in yellow built by the service mesh vendor/project maintainers.

Supports:

Meshery Deployment

Meshery adapters

Meshery adapters

gRPC

A

P

I

DB

Meshery

Adapter

SMI

Kubernetes

Meshery Operator

MeshSync

Docker or Kubernetes

Service Mesh

Grafana

Kube API

HTTP

Request Load

Prometheus

HTTP

HTTP

Service A

Gateway / Ingress

Gateway / Egress

Service B

Service C

Service E

Service D

Service E

HTTP/ TCP

gRPC

Meshery

Meshery Deployment

Providers

Meshery adapters

Meshery adapters

gRPC

A

P

I

DB

Meshery

Adapter

SMI

Kubernetes

Meshery Operator

MeshSync

Docker or Kubernetes

Service Mesh

Grafana

Kube API

HTTP

Request Load

Prometheus

HTTP

HTTP

Service A

Gateway / Ingress

Gateway / Egress

Service B

Service C

Service E

Service D

Service E

HTTP/ TCP

gRPC

Persistence Layer

Persistence Layer

Persistence Layer

Persistence Layer

Meshery

University of Engineering Jaipur

University of Texas at Austin

SMI Conformance

Remote Provider

None

Local Provider

Meshery

Meshery Deployment

Clients

Clients

Meshery adapters

Meshery adapters

gRPC

A

P

I

DB

Meshery

Adapter

SMI

Kubernetes

Meshery Operator

MeshSync

Docker or Kubernetes

Service Mesh

Grafana

Kube API

HTTP

Request Load

Prometheus

HTTP

HTTP

Service A

Gateway / Ingress

Gateway / Egress

Service B

Service C

Service E

Service D

Service E

HTTP/ TCP

gRPC

Meshery

GitHub Actions

User Data and Preferences

extension point

Infrastructure

accounts

users

groups

roles

permissions

Identity

test schedule

test results

test profiles

extension point

board config

validators

perf test

System Preferences

static board

environments

System Deployment

Meshery

Server

Environment

docker-compose

analytics

adapters

K8s manifests

Helm charts

The extensible mesh manager

​

Legend

K8s config

Prometheus

Grafana

N:1

1:1

1:1

N:N

Cluster

Provider

1:N

1:1

Adapter

Cluster

Local Provider

temporary storage�default functionality

Adapter

Meshery owns this Object

Meshery is aware of this Object

Meshery Extension Point

Service Mesh

Prometheus

Grafana

Meshery Preferences

Remote Provider

permanent storage�additional functionality

N:N

Load Generator

Load Generator

kubeconfig

context

mesheryctl config

Control Plane

Defaults

System-wide Settings

UI

Extension�Point

DB

Extension�Point

Extension�Point

Performance

Meshery owns this Sub-object

Data Plane

Filter

Extension�Point

Meshery Operator

Prometheus

Application

GraphQL Server

Extension�Point

Pattern

Pattern

Extension�Point

Extension�Point

Extensions

N:1

Jaeger

Configuration Best Practices�Operate with confidence

Assess your service mesh configuration against deployment and operational best practices with Meshery's configuration analyzer.

Service Mesh Interface Conformance�Meshery, the service mesh compliance tool

Meshery Functionality

✔︎ Defines compliant behavior.

✔︎ Produces compatibility matrix.

✔︎ Ensures provenance of results.

✔︎ Runs a set of conformance tests.

✔︎ Securely ensures integrity of results.

✔︎ Manages all SMI compatible service meshes.

✔︎ Built into participating service mesh’s release pipeline.

✔︎ Common sample application for validating test assertions.

Operate and upgrade with confirmation of SMI compatibility.

Expect more from your infrastructure

Harnessing data plane intelligence

Manage data plane intelligence with WebAssembly filters

​

Dynamically load and manage your own WebAssembly filters in Envoy-based service meshes.

Service Mesh Patterns

and ecosystem projects

- confidential -

Service Mesh Patterns�Enabling use of repeatable architectural patterns

name: IstioSM

version: 1.0.1

services:

istio:

type: IstioMesh

namespace: istio-system

settings:

version: 1.8.2

traits:

mTLS:

policy: mutual

namespaces:

- istio-test

automaticSidecarInjection:

namespaces:

- default

- istio-test

​

grafana:

type: GrafanaIstioAddon

namespace: istio-system

dependsOn:

- istio

- prometheus

​

prometheus:

type: PrometheusIstioAddon

namespace: istio-system

dependsOn:

- istio

​

Service Mesh Patterns enable the business function in simple language.

• Patterns capture service mesh behavior in a single file and an end-user centric way.

​

Service Mesh Patterns are service mesh agnostic.

• But, still allow users access service mesh-specific features and differentiation.

​

Service Mesh Patterns are reusable.

• Not only are patterns idempotent, but you can easily copy a pattern and modify to suit.

Meshery delivers� Service Mesh Patterns

​

Defining Service Mesh Patterns

CNCF Service Mesh Working Group

SMP087: Circuit breaker pattern

layer5.io/books/service-mesh-patterns

- Meet on 1st and 3rd Thursday of every month at 11am Pacific.

- Connect: Slack Channel (#tag-network).

- Join: Service Mesh WG mailing lists at lists.cncf.io

Service Mesh Performance

Define and Enforce

Service Mesh Standards

and ecosystem projects

- confidential -

Meshery implements� Service Mesh Performance (SMP)

A universal performance index to gauge your mesh’s efficiency:

• as a baseline and ongoing metric against your deployments.�
• in contrast to similar deployments in other organizations’ / users’ environments.

Facilitates apples-to-apples performance comparisons of service mesh deployments.

smp-spec.io

Facilitates:

�- a universal performance index to gauge a service mesh’s efficiency against deployments in other organizations’ environments.

​

- benchmarking of service mesh performance�

- exchange of performance information from system-to-system / mesh-to-mesh�

- apples-to-apples performance comparisons of service mesh deployments.

A vendor neutral specification for capturing details of infrastructure capacity, service mesh configuration, and workload metadata.

Directly enables:

• capturing details of infrastructure capacity, service mesh configuration, and workload metadata.

Performance Management�Understand value vs Overhead

Project Alignment

SMP, SMI, and Meshery

MESHERY

SMP

SMI

Meshery runs conformance for

Meshery implements

Meshery implements

SMP goes deeper and broader

WASM

Filters

Workloads

Traffic Metrics

Git integrations

Workflow

Traffic only

Scheduling

Orchestration

Policy

Benchmarks

Users

-more-

Visual Topology

Load Generators

Load Profile

Patterns

Configuration Analysis

Traffic Specs

Traffic Split

Meshery goes deeper, incorporating strategies

Access

Retries

Canaries

Rate Limiting

Configuration Designer

MULTI-

MESH

Dry-run

Adaptive optimization

GitHub Actions

and ecosystem projects

Meshery integrates GetNighthawk

Distributed systems require distributed analysis

• the service mesh management plane
• supports wrk2, fortio, and Nighthawk as single instance load generators.

• a Layer 7 performance characterization tool created by Envoy project.
• a load generator custom-built for data plane proxy testing.

• Recursively evaluate optimal configuration using adaptive load controllers in Meshery for ongoing insight and automatic tuning.�
• Parallelize distributed performance testing with high precision for insight into high tail percentiles. Unlock distributed systems behavioral analysis.

getnighthawk.dev

Nighthawk

Meshery

+

=

Try Meshery. �

Engage in the service mesh community → https://meshery.io

Architecture

Adapter Library

Meshery Adapter Library

config

Adapter (e.g. Consul)

consul

<<interface>>

Handler

<<struct>>

Viper

<<interface>>

MeshServiceServer

<<struct>>

Service

meshes

api/grpc

config/provider

adapter

<<interface>>

Handler

<<struct>>

Adapter

<<struct>>

Handler

main

instantiate config

instantiate adapter handler

...

instantiate service

start/run service

<<implement>>

<<implement>>

<<implement>>

<<extend>>

<<instantiate>>

<<instantiate>>

<<instantiate>>

<<func>>

Start

<<execute>>

<<use>>

<<use>>

Data Persistence

Statefulness in Meshery’s Components

((see docs)

Data Persistence

Physical View

System Deployment

Meshery

Server

docker-compose

K8s manifests

helm charts

Provider

Adapter

Adapters

Load Generator

Load Generators

context

mesheryctl config

UI

bitcask

mesheryctl

Meshery Operator

sqlite

Future: Bitcask goes away. SQLite becomes the only database.

map

MeshSync

• Details of infrastructure under management by Meshery.

Filters

• Collection of filters from Filter Hub / Meshery Server

System-wide Settings

​

• Settings affecting Meshery deployment and behavior
• Kubernetes in-cluster vs out-of-cluster deployment

​

• Meshery adapters connections
• Meshery Operator connection
• Metrics (Grafana and Prometheus connections)

​

​

• Default performance test settings
• Send anonymous usage statistics
• Send anonymous performance test results

Individual User Preferences and data

• Owner of user performance test profiles
• Performance test setting defaults�
• Default performance test settings
• Send anonymous usage statistics
• Send anonymous performance test results�
• Meshery adapters connections (show/hide/access)
• Environments/Contexts (show/hide/access)

Settings, Preferences and their relationships�Logical View

Performance Test Profiles

• List of different common test configurations.

Performance Test Schedules

• List of different common test configurations.

Conformance Tests

• List of different common test configurations.

Configuration Practices

• Audit of best practice configurations.

Patterns

• Popular service mesh configuration and behavior

Applications

• Kubernetes workloads deployed on or off a service mesh.

Provider Extensions

• Provider-specific plugins (e.g. MeshMap Views)

bitcask

overwritable

Global defaults overridden by Individual User Preferences

immutable

visibility

bitcask

sqlite

System Flows

Sequence Diagrams

​

Meshery Adapter

Operation Registration Sequence Diagram

1. User opens the Meshery UI and clicks on initialize discovery

2. Meshmap UI sends request to the Meshery Operator to start MeshSync discovery

3. Meshery Operator signals the Meshsync controller to start the cluster discovery pipeline.

4. The discovery data is streamed to the NATS subjects as and when the discovery occurs.

5. Data consumed by the meshery server to be persisted.

6. Cluster discovery data persisted with timestamp

NATS

/api/discovery/cluster

State of the mesh cache

7. Websocket connection for the rest of the operations

Client

Meshery Adapter

MeshSync

Meshery Server

Meshery Operator

Dataflow Sequence Diagram

1. User opens the Meshery UI and clicks on initialize discovery

2. Meshmap UI sends request to the Meshery Operator to start MeshSync discovery

3. Meshery Operator signals the Meshsync controller to start the cluster discovery pipeline.

4. The discovery data is streamed to the NATS subjects as and when the discovery occurs.

5. Data consumed by the meshery server to be persisted.

6. Cluster discovery data persisted with timestamp

NATS

/api/discovery/cluster

State of the mesh cache

7. Websocket connection for the rest of the operations

Client

Meshery Operator

MeshSync

Meshery Server

Meshery Operator

Deployment Sequence Diagram

2. Deploy Meshery Operator to Kubernetes (by installing CRDs and create a MeshSync Custom Resource and Broker Custom Resource)

1. User opens the Meshery UI and clicks on initialize discovery

3. Meshery Operator signals the Meshsync controller to start the cluster discovery pipeline.

4. The discovery data is streamed to the NATS subjects as and when the discovery occurs.

5. Data consumed by the meshery server to be persisted.

6. Cluster discovery data persisted with timestamp

NATS

/graphql/endpoint�(Graphql Schema)

State of the mesh cache

7. GraphQL Subscriptions

Client

Meshery Operator

MeshSync

Meshery Server

MeshSync

1. Contains Generic Kubernetes “Fingerprints”.

2. Is given service mesh “fingerprints” by each service mesh adapter.

Initialization Flow: Meshery Server

1. Meshery auto-connects to the user’s current-context (which includes which cluster).

​

2.a. User verification of which Kubernetes context to use (in order to deploy Meshery Operator).

- or -

2.b. Or Meshery auto-deploys Meshery Operator to the cluster, but needs to ensure that it removes a Meshery Operator deployment when a user disconnects Kubernetes cluster

​

3. Will deploy the Meshery Operator on connect of a Kubernetes cluster and create the first CR of MeshSync�

4. Database - caches MeshSync data in relational database.

Controller initializes the NATS server

1. Kube API call to the Meshery Operator Register Fingerprints

Meshery Adapter

Location of Meshery Operator (NATS server)

Meshery Adapters

1. Will create or patch a custom resource that should be pre-existing MeshSync CR.

Meshery Adapter

Capabilities Table

- List of operations

Mesh Fingerprint

- image name with “istio”

MeshSync Object List

- any CRD matching “istio”

Validators

- Best practice

- Security

-

​

​

GraphQL Resolvers

Gorm to SQLlite Persister

GraphQL Client

Upgrading Meshery

Component by component

System Deployment

Meshery

Server

docker-compose

K8s manifests

helm charts

Provider

Adapter

Adapters

Load Generator

Load Generators

context

mesheryctl config

UI

DB

Extension�Point

mesheryctl

These components do not share the same version number. They deploy as a unit.

Meshery Operator

Service Mesh Patterns

Meshery Patterns

Integration with Open Application Modal (OAM)

Specifications used by Meshery

SMP Spec

- Load profile

​

SMI Spec

- Service mesh config

​

OAM Spec

- Application details

​

Policy

- Patterns

- Best practices

​

Workflow Definition

- Schedule

- Trigger

- Steps

- Custom script

- Output of step

​

Kubernetes

- Infra config

​

Legend

Meshery owns this Object

Meshery is aware of this Object

Open Application Model

Meshery owns this Sub-object

​

Registering of OAM components, traits and scopes

The intention is to make Meshery act like Kubernetes API however unlike Kubernetes, Meshery Server will invoke RPCs on Meshery Adapters.

​

In response, Adapters will return Trait Definitions (along with their schemas), Component Definitions (along with their schemas), and Scope Definitions (along with their schemas). Meshery server will store/register them in memory. This information is then used by Meshery Server to figure out which meshery adapter is capable of handling which OAM resource.

Community Partners

RESEARCH PARTNERS

TECHNOLOGY PARTNERS

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