Visualizing service connectivity, dependencies, and traffic flows in Kubernetes clusters

Today, the cloud platform engineers are facing new challenges when running cloud native applications. Those applications are designed, deployed, maintained and monitored unlike traditional monolithic applications they are used to working with.

Cloud native applications are designed and built to exploit the scale, elasticity, resiliency, and flexibility the cloud provides. They are a group of micro-services that are run in containers within a Kubernetes cluster and they all talk to each other. It can quickly become overwhelming for any cloud engineer to understand and visualize their environment.

Visualizing Kubernetes network traffic and service dependencies presents significant challenges due to the dynamic and distributed nature of Kubernetes environments. The dynamic nature of Kubernetes clusters, with frequent scaling of pods, creation and deletion of services, and changes in network connections, makes it difficult to capture an accurate and up-to-date representation of network traffic and service dependencies.

Additionally, the complexity of Kubernetes networking, involving multiple components such as pods, services, and network policies, further complicates the visualization of network traffic flow and understanding of service dependencies. The use of microservices architecture in Kubernetes, where applications consist of interconnected services, adds to the complexity, particularly as the number of services grows.

Moreover, the scalability Continue reading