In this presentation, we will walk through Airbnb’s Istio Journey - why we needed a modern service mesh, how we vetted Istio as the solution, where we are today, the lessons we learnt along the way, and our future plans. We will cover topics including:

• Airbnb’s multicluster/cell setup, problems we ran into/ideas for UX improvements
• Airbnb’s upgrade setup for gradual rollout of newer versions of Istio
• Airbnb’s test pipeline for vetting features we care about
• How we handled k8s & mesh expansion in a consistent philosophy
• How we approached migration (zero downtime, no regression)
• Airbnb’s learnings/pain points/future expectation with Istio
• Current areas of open discussion - come talk to us more about this