Istio
Istio is an open-source service mesh platform that provides a uniform way to connect, secure, control, and observe microservices in a Kubernetes environment. It manages traffic flow between services, enforces policies, and aggregates telemetry data without requiring changes to application code. By deploying a sidecar proxy (Envoy) alongside each service, Istio abstracts network functionality away from the application layer.
Developers should learn and use Istio when building or managing complex microservices architectures on Kubernetes, especially for applications requiring advanced traffic management (e.g., canary deployments, A/B testing), robust security (e.g., mutual TLS, authorization), and comprehensive observability (e.g., metrics, logs, traces). It is particularly valuable in production environments where reliability, security, and monitoring are critical, as it simplifies cross-cutting concerns that are otherwise difficult to implement consistently across services.