Isovalent Hive Track: Cilium Deep Dive event
SUE is always at the forefront of technology, so it’s no surprise that they were one of the first to join the Isovalent Hive Track: Cilium Deep Dive event. The event was an excellent opportunity for SUE and partners to learn more about Cilium. Cilium is an open-source project that provides a comprehensive set of code for operating network functions as microservices. During the event, attendees had the chance to attend talks and workshops that covered topics such as Cilium installation and configuration, networking basics with Cilium, load balancing with Cilium, and using Kubernetes with Cilium. Additionally, SUE attendees could discuss various aspects of Cilium with experts from the Isovalent team. Overall, the event was a valuable experience for the SUE team and helped us deepen our understanding of Cilium.
Cilium: The Basics
Cilium is a software-defined networking (SDN) and container network security solution. It provides a unified, scalable, and highly programmable networking and security stack for both containers and virtual machines. Cilium can be used with any container runtime or orchestration solution.
Cilium aims to provide fine-grained network visibility and security while maintaining high performance and scalability. Cilium provides this by using BPF and XDP to implement a stateless, programmable data plane that Cilium can use to enforce network security policies and provide load-balancing, service discovery, and more. In addition, Cilium requires no kernel modifications, making it easy to install and use.
How to Install Cilium
Cilium can be installed on any Linux host with a kernel version higher than 4.8. that supports BPF and XDP. In addition, Cilium can be deployed using systemd, Kubernetes, or Mesos. For detailed instructions on how to install Cilium, please refer to the official documentation.
How to Use Cilium
Once Cilium is installed, you can enforce network security policies and provide load-balancing, service discovery, and more. To get started, you will need to create a configuration file. The Cilium documentation provides an example configuration file you can use as a starting point.
Best Practices for Using Cilium
There are a few best practices to ensure optimal performance and security. First, deploy Cilium with HTTPS enabled in order to encrypt communications between the Ciliumctl client and server. Second, deploy Cilium with RBAC enabled to restrict access to the Cilium API. Finally, run the latest version of Cilium to receive the latest bug fixes and security updates.
Conclusion of the Isovalent Hive Track: Cilium Deep Dive event
Cilium is a fast, easy-to-use container networking and security solution for Kubernetes. It provides unmatched performance and ease of use, making it the perfect choice for securing your containerised applications. In this blog post, we covered the basics of Cilium, how to install it, and how to use it. We also discussed some best practices to follow once it is up and running. Finally, we covered how to scale Cilium and what questions need to be answered in order to do so successfully. SUE and partners had a fantastic time at the Isovalent Hive Track: Cilium Deep Dive event. Stay tuned for future blog posts to discuss how to scale Cilium track hive deployments! Thanks for reading!
If you have any questions, feel free to reach out – We are always happy to help!