Solo.io Makes Integrated Application Networking Push
Solo.io has launched a Gloo Platform that combines an application programming interface (API) gateway, service mesh and other networking technologies into a unified application networking platform.
Brian Gracely, vice president of product management for Solo.io, says Gloo Platform promises to reduce operational costs as organizations embrace application networking in cloud-native application environments based on microservices.
Based on open source Istio service mesh, Envoy proxy software and Cilium networking software, Gloo Platform bundles Gloo Gateway, Gloo Mesh and Gloo Network in a single platform. The goal is to make it easier to achieve zero-trust application networking via a unified control plane that can be centrally managed, Gracely noted.
Application networking is emerging as a distinct discipline as more applications as the dependencies between microservices continue to increase. Less clear is whether application networking will remain limited to microservices-based applications running in Kubernetes environments or if it will extend to also include monolithic applications running on legacy platforms. Solo.io is betting, one way or another, that the Istio service mesh now being advanced under the auspices of the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF) will be at the core of any cloud-native approach to application networking.
The implications of application networking are profound in that it presents an opportunity to programmatically integrate network and security operations into DevOps workflows. Rather than requiring developers to master lower-level networking APIs, the Gloo Platform, for example, provides a higher level of abstraction for invoking those services without having to rely on a network specialist to make them accessible.
It’s not quite clear where in the cloud-native maturity model the need for application networking becomes apparent, but as more organizations find themselves trying to integrate thousands of APIs, it’s clear that cobbling together a wide range of enabling technologies on their own is a challenge. As such, demand for platforms that aggregate service mesh, proxy software and network overlays should increase.
In the meantime, IT organizations may soon need to revisit how they are structured. There may always be a need for dedicated networking specialists to manage the physical network underlay, but the networking services themselves will inevitably become more integrated with other approaches to managing infrastructure-as-code (IaC). In fact, any upgrade to the networking underlay should be a lot less disruptive than they have been historically.
There are, of course, a lot of approaches to application networking that are now emerging. Regardless of how application networking evolves, however, the rigidity that has characterized the delivery of network services for decades should finally start to fade away. Today, outside of a cloud computing environment, it’s still common for IT teams to provision virtual machines or Kubernetes pods in hours only to wait days or even weeks for network connectivity to be provisioned. As IT environments become more hybrid and more workloads are pushed to the edge, the need for a more agile approach to networking is becoming critical.
