Ambient Mesh (Lab)cumentation

A comprehensive reference guide for Ambient Mesh commands and architecture

About Ambient Mesh

Ambient mesh is an open source service mesh architecture that simplifies and extends traditional service mesh models. Unlike traditional service meshes, the ambient mesh architecture removes the requirement of running a sidecar alongside each app in your mesh.

Instead, you can route from proxies to reach Layer 4 traffic in the ambient mesh, and use waypoint proxies to apply Layer 7 policies wherever needed. Because of that, ambient mesh simplifies operations, reduces performance, and reduces overhead.

Ambient Mesh Architecture

The architecture consists of two communication layers:

• Layer 4 communication flow: Manages basic transport-level traffic (e.g., TCP/UDP)
• Layer 7 communication flow: Handles application-level traffic (e.g., HTTP), enabling smart routing and filtering
• Waypoint proxy: Enforces Layer 7 policies like routing, authentication, or retries.
• Control plane: Configures and coordinates the service mesh components and policies

How to Use This Reference

Hover over any command in the reference below to see a detailed description of what it does and how to use it. This interactive reference provides quick access to all the essential Ambient Mesh commands.

Getting Started

$ istioctl install --set profile=ambient

Interactive Command Reference

Hover over commands to see descriptions

Setup and Installation

$ curl -L https://istio.io/downloadIstio | sh -

$ cd istio-$VERSION

$ export PATH=$PWD/bin:$PATH

$ istioctl install --set profile=ambient

View Ambient Mesh Metrics

Note: You must install Prometheus first.

Ambient mesh exposes the Prometheus expression browser:

$ istioctl dashboard prometheus

You can use Prometheus Query Language (PromQL) to run queries against metrics in Layer 4 or Layer 7 metrics.