Migrate from GKE Istio add-on to open source Istio

[Bo Henriksen]

Hello

We are using GKE Istio add-on version 1.6.14-gke.1.

We are considering migrating to the open source version of Istio. 

Google documentation mention that this is possible to do but not how you do it. So if we want to do the migration would it be possible to follow the canary upgrade to istio version 1.7.8?

Does anyone have experience with Anthos Service Mesh? Im just wondering if you install Anthos service mesh in one cluster do you then have one Anthos Service Mesh client? Or is an Anthos Service Mesh client something else?

Thanks

[khalidq]

Hello, 

I understand that you are looking for documentation that explain how to migrate from from Istio as GKE addon to Istio OSS.

At the moment, we are only recommending migrating from Istio as GKE addon to Anthos Service Mesh [1] that is fully tested, documented and supported at the opposite of Istio OSS that is not supported. 

To answer your second question, a service mesh consists of one or more control planes and a data plane. The service mesh monitors all traffic through a proxy. On Kubernetes, the proxy is deployed by a sidecar pattern to the microservices in the mesh [2]

I hope that answers your questions.

[1] https://cloud.google.com/istio/docs#cloud-site

[2] https://cloud.google.com/service-mesh/docs/overview#what_is_a_service_mesh

[Bo Henriksen]

Hello,

Thanks for the answer :)

Regarding the client question I'm trying to understand the pricing for the Anthos Service Mesh Client. So you pay per hour per client per month. If we have 3 different clusters and enable Anthos Service Mesh on all 3 clusters. Do we then use 3 clients?

Thanks

[Roberto Carbajales di Cosola]

Hello,

Regarding you question of how the pricing works for the Anthos Service Mesh Client, there are two pricing options when it comes to cost in Anthos, there is the Pay as you go where you are billed for Anthos-managed cluster as you use them at, and there is the option of subscriptions which privdes a discounted price for a committed term, you can check this table to see the rates of the two options [1].

It is also important to know that Anthos charges apply to all managed Anthos cluster and are based on the number of Anthos cluster vCPUs, charged on an hourly basis, you can see how a vCPU is considered "under management " here [1]

[1] https://cloud.google.com/anthos/pricing