Retina – eBPF distributed networking observability tool for Kubernetes
1–10 of 31 posts
Re: Retina – eBPF distributed networking observability tool for Kubernetes
#2Probably this means it's not for me, but what is this useful for?
Anyone using this in their prod set-up and has a scenario where they found this useful?
Re: Retina – eBPF distributed networking observability tool for Kubernetes
#3Probably this means it's not for me, but what is this useful for? Anyone using this in their prod set-up and has a scenario where they found this useful?
Just today at $DAYJOB we had a complaint that one teams Azure Kubernetes clusters was "slow". About only metric out of norm was network traffic - but lack of detailed instrumentation meant we couldn't really isolate the cause to specific container or process
Re: Retina – eBPF distributed networking observability tool for Kubernetes
#4Probably this means it's not for me, but what is this useful for? Anyone using this in their prod set-up and has a scenario where they found this useful?
Haven't used this but I tried out Pixie trying to debug where outgoing traffic was coming from and where it was going and was fairly successful although Pixie wasn't very stable/had a lot of issues causing crashes.
In this case, we had a couple services talking to 3rd party services running on AWS so it wasn't obvious from generic flow logs.
I also used Lacework a couple years ago which is eBPF based and it was pretty trivial to see things phoning home or one off maintenance where a new connection was being initiated.
Re: Retina – eBPF distributed networking observability tool for Kubernetes
#5Probably this means it's not for me, but what is this useful for? Anyone using this in their prod set-up and has a scenario where they found this useful?
It’s like Cilium + Hubble but useful for you don’t/can’t run cilium. Uses eBPF to collect metrics and stats on what flows where, can record an impressive amount of stuff, without any required instrumentation of your applications. Amazingly handy for when you run both first party and 3rd party apps in your K8s cluster. The network maps these tools produce are handy too.
Although, Cilium is pretty great, so not sure why you wouldn’t run it, given the option…
Re: Retina – eBPF distributed networking observability tool for Kubernetes
#6Probably this means it's not for me, but what is this useful for? Anyone using this in their prod set-up and has a scenario where they found this useful?
It’s like Cilium + Hubble but useful for you don’t/can’t run cilium. Uses eBPF to collect metrics and stats on what flows where, can record an impressive amount of stuff, without any required instrumentation of your applications. Amazingly handy for when you run both first party and 3rd party apps in your K8s cluster. The network maps these tools produce are handy too. Although, Cilium is pretty great, so not sure wh…
Cillium has been bought out by Cisco, so its monetization is only a matter of time.
Also, not everyone needs to implement a service mesh.
Re: Retina – eBPF distributed networking observability tool for Kubernetes
#7See also: Network Mapper - low privileges, no-eBPF network observability tool for K8s
Re: Retina – eBPF distributed networking observability tool for Kubernetes
#8Earlier quoted context omitted.
It’s like Cilium + Hubble but useful for you don’t/can’t run cilium. Uses eBPF to collect metrics and stats on what flows where, can record an impressive amount of stuff, without any required instrumentation of your applications. Amazingly handy for when you run both first party and 3rd party apps in your K8s cluster. The network maps these tools produce are handy too. Although, Cilium is pretty great, so not sure wh…
Cillium has been bought out by Cisco, so its monetization is only a matter of time. Also, not everyone needs to implement a service mesh.
Neither Cilium nor Hubble are service meshes.
Cilium is a CNI - the functionality that provides the K8s cluster inter-pod networking. The fact that it uses eBPF to deliver its functionality is what gives it the impressive observability you usually only get from a service mesh. I agree that not everyone needs a service mesh.
Re: Retina – eBPF distributed networking observability tool for Kubernetes
#9Earlier quoted context omitted.
It’s like Cilium + Hubble but useful for you don’t/can’t run cilium. Uses eBPF to collect metrics and stats on what flows where, can record an impressive amount of stuff, without any required instrumentation of your applications. Amazingly handy for when you run both first party and 3rd party apps in your K8s cluster. The network maps these tools produce are handy too. Although, Cilium is pretty great, so not sure wh…
Cillium has been bought out by Cisco, so its monetization is only a matter of time. Also, not everyone needs to implement a service mesh.
Cillium is a CNCF project and Apache 2 licensed. Isovalent and their enterprise product were bought by Cisco.
Re: Retina – eBPF distributed networking observability tool for Kubernetes
#10Probably this means it's not for me, but what is this useful for? Anyone using this in their prod set-up and has a scenario where they found this useful?
The linked docs provide more info: https://retina.sh/docs/intro