Multi-cluster Kubernetes with Ambassador and Linkerd
Linkerd 2.8 adds easy-to-use multi-cluster support with the Ambassador Edge Stack
As Kubernetes adoption has skyrocketed, we’ve seen organizations increasingly adopt a multi-cluster Kubernetes architecture. Multi-cluster offers a number of key advantages, including global failover, multi-tenant isolation, and reducing compliance scope. Unfortunately, deploying applications that span multiple clusters has been an exercise in configuration complexity and frustration.
Linkerd 2.8 and the Ambassador Edge Stack
Today, we’re thrilled to announce a partnership with Buoyant, makers of Linkerd, to support multi-cluster Kubernetes with Ambassador. This approach enables any organization to quickly and easily deploy their application in a way that spans multiple clusters. Support for multi-cluster is available today with the Linkerd 2.8 release. Critically, no application-level changes are needed to take advantage of this functionality.
By leveraging the Ambassador Edge Stack for cross-cluster communication, Linkerd is able to take advantage of a proven, robust ingress solution that meets the resilience, observability, and performance requirements for today’s cloud-native applications.
Under the Hood
Linkerd 2.8’s multi-cluster capability is based on the service mirroring architecture developed by Thomas Rampelberg and the Buoyant team. In this design, Linkerd transparently mirrors Kubernetes service definitions between clusters. When a service in a cluster sends a request to a service in another cluster, the request is securely routed over the Internet to the appropriate cluster. This request is processed by the Ambassador Edge Stack, which will then route the request to the appropriate service. We’ve worked with the Buoyant engineering team to support configuring your existing Ambassador instance so that it can be used by the Linkerd multi-cluster capability. By reusing your existing Ambassador instance, deployment configuration is simplified, as there is no need to maintain and manage two different ingress gateways.
For more information
For more information about Ambassador, Linkerd, and multi-cluster support, see these resources:
