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kubernetesgoogle-cloud-platformistiostackdriver

Monitoring GKE on Stackdriver and Istio

I noticed that it is possible to have a pretty in depth view into the k8s cluster running on GKE via Stackdriver. How does this differ from deploying Istio in GKE clusters? Does Istio provide more detailed information that Stackdriver is not able to do so?

Solution

  • Stackdriver is used for logging/service monitoring which provides performance and diagnostics data in Kubernetes whereas Istio is a Service Mesh.

    Service Monitoring in an opinionated infrastructure helps monitor how end users perceive the systems thereby drill down to the infrastructure level whenever necessary.

    Useful Context about StackDriver from Google, with Stackdriver Service Monitoring, you get the answers to the following questions:

    1. What are your services? What functionality do those services expose to internal and external customers?
    2. What are your promises and commitments regarding the availability and performance of those services, and are your services meeting them?
    3. For microservices-based apps, what are the inter-service dependencies? 4. How can you use that knowledge to double-check new code rollouts and triage problems in the event of service degradation?
    4. Can you look at all the monitoring signals for a service holistically to reduce MTTR?

    However, when it comes to Istio:

    1. It helps you put your networking/whitelisting rules on the deployed services.
    2. Provides an answer to Which/What/How, which service will connect to what service and how the connection will take place?
    3. Istio reduces the complexity of managing microservice deployments by providing a uniform way to secure and connect to microservices.
    4. Authorization between services deployed inside the Kubernetes cluster.
    5. Authentication of external clients that connect to the internal services in the cluster.

    Stackdriver is the default logging solution for clusters deployed on Google Kubernetes Engine.

    In simple terms, Stack driver brings logging, monitoring and diagnostics and Istio, the service mesh does the actual implementation of what all should be done and how.