Set up a multi-cloud or hybrid mesh

Preview — Hybrid and multi-cloud mesh

This feature is subject to the "Pre-GA Offerings Terms" in the General Service Terms section of the Service Specific Terms. Pre-GA features are available "as is" and might have limited support. For more information, see the launch stage descriptions.

This page explains how to set up a multi-cloud or hybrid mesh for the following platforms:

• Hybrid: GKE on Google Cloud and Google Distributed Cloud (preview)
• Hybrid: GKE on Google Cloud and Google Distributed Cloud (preview)
• Multi-cloud: GKE on Google Cloud and Amazon EKS (preview)

Warning: Contact support before setting up a multi-cloud mesh.

Platform Note: The asmcli create-mesh command that you use to enable endpoint discovery requires all the clusters in the mesh to be one of the multi-cloud/hybrid platform combinations in the preceding list. Other combinations of multi-cloud or hybrid meshes on other platforms are not supported. Managed Cloud Service Mesh is not supported in multi-cloud or hybrid mesh.

By following these instructions you set up two clusters, but you can extend this process to incorporate any number of clusters into your mesh.

Prerequisites

• All clusters must be registered to the same fleet host project.
• All GKE clusters must be in a shared VPC configuration on the same network.
• The cluster's Kubernetes control plane address and the gateway address need to be reachable from every cluster in the mesh. The Google Cloud project in which GKE clusters are located should be allowed to create external load balancing types. We recommend that you use authorized networks and VPC firewall rules to restrict the access.
• Private clusters, including GKE private clusters, are not supported. If you use On-Premises clusters including Google Distributed Cloud and Google Distributed Cloud, the Kubernetes control plane address and the gateway address need to be reachable from pods in GKE clusters. We recommend that you use CloudVPN to connect the GKE cluster's subnet with the On-Premises cluster's network.
• If you use Istio CA, use the same custom root certificate for all clusters.

Before you begin

This guide assumes you installed Cloud Service Mesh using the asmcli tool. You need asmcli and the configuration package that asmcli downloads to the directory that you specified in --output_dir when you ran asmcli install. For more information, see Install dependent tools and validate cluster to:

• Install required tools
• Download asmcli
• Grant cluster admin permissions
• Validate your project and cluster

You need access to the kubeconfig files for all the clusters that you are setting up in the mesh. For the GKE cluster, in order to create a new kubeconfig file for the cluster, you can export KUBECONFIG env with the complete path of file as value in your terminal and generate the kubeconfig entry.

Warning: Only use kubeconfig files from trusted sources. Using a specially-crafted kubeconfig file could result in malicious code execution or file exposure. If you must use an untrusted kubeconfig file, inspect it carefully first, much as you would a shell script.

Set up environment variables and placeholders

You need the following environment variables when you install the east-west gateway.

Create environment variables for the network names:

• GKE clusters default to the cluster network name:

  export NETWORK_1="PROJECT_ID-CLUSTER_NETWORK"
  ``````
  

• Other clusters use default:

  export NETWORK_2="default"
  ``````
  

If you installed Cloud Service Mesh on other clusters with different values for --network_id, then you should pass the same values to value to NETWORK_2.

Install the east-west gateway

1. Install a gateway in CLUSTER_1 (your GKE cluster) that is dedicated to east-west traffic to CLUSTER_2 (your multi-cloud or on-premise cluster):

   asm/istio/expansion/gen-eastwest-gateway.sh \
       --network ${NETWORK_1}  \
       --revision asm-1233-2 | \
       ./istioctl --kubeconfig=PATH_TO_KUBECONFIG_1 install -y -f -
   

   Note that this gateway is public on the Internet by default. Production systems might require additional access restrictions, for example firewall rules, to prevent external attacks.

2. Install a gateway in CLUSTER_2 that is dedicated to east-west traffic for CLUSTER_1.

   asm/istio/expansion/gen-eastwest-gateway.sh \
       --network ${NETWORK_2} \
       --revision asm-1233-2 | \
       ./istioctl --kubeconfig=PATH_TO_KUBECONFIG_2 install -y -f -
   

Expose services

Since the clusters are on separate networks, you need to expose all services (\*.local) on the east-west gateway in both clusters. While this gateway is public on the internet, services behind it can only be accessed by services with a trusted mTLS certificate and workload ID, just as if they were on the same network.

Expose services via the east-west gateway for every cluster

    kubectl --kubeconfig=PATH_TO_KUBECONFIG_1 apply -n istio-system -f \
        asm/istio/expansion/expose-services.yaml
    kubectl --kubeconfig=PATH_TO_KUBECONFIG_2 apply -n istio-system -f \
        asm/istio/expansion/expose-services.yaml

Enable endpoint discovery

Note: For more information on endpoint discovery, refer to Endpoint discovery with multiple control planes.

Run the asmcli create-mesh command to enable endpoint discovery. This example only shows two clusters, but you can run the command to enable endpoint discovery on additional clusters, subject to the GKE Hub service limit.

  ./asmcli create-mesh \
      FLEET_PROJECT_ID \
      PATH_TO_KUBECONFIG_1 \
      PATH_TO_KUBECONFIG_2

Verify multicluster connectivity

Platform note: These steps are only applicable if you are using an in-cluster control plane. For managed Cloud Service Mesh, see Injecting sidecar proxies or Apply the managed data plane.

This section explains how to deploy the sample HelloWorld and Sleep services to your multi-cluster environment to verify that cross-cluster load balancing works.

Note: These sample services are located in the Istio samples directory included in the istioctl tarball (located in OUTPUT_DIR/istio-${ASM_VERSION%+*}/samples) and not the samples directory downloaded by asmcli (located in OUTPUT_DIR/samples).

Enable sidecar injection

Locate the revision label value, which you use in later steps.

Note: If your clusters each have different versions of Cloud Service Mesh you must run the following command for each cluster.

Use the following command to locate the revision label, which you will use in later steps.

kubectl -n istio-system get pods -l app=istiod --show-labels

The output looks similar to the following:

NAME                                READY   STATUS    RESTARTS   AGE   LABELS
istiod-asm-173-3-5788d57586-bljj4   1/1     Running   0          23h   app=istiod,istio.io/rev=asm-173-3,istio=istiod,pod-template-hash=5788d57586
istiod-asm-173-3-5788d57586-vsklm   1/1     Running   1          23h   app=istiod,istio.io/rev=asm-173-3,istio=istiod,pod-template-hash=5788d57586

In the output, under the LABELS column, note the value of the istiod revision label, which follows the prefix istio.io/rev=. In this example, the value is asm-173-3. Use the revision value in the steps in the next section.

Install the HelloWorld service

Note: The HelloWorld service example uses Docker Hub. In a private cluster, the container runtime can pull container images from Artifact Registry by default. The container runtime cannot pull images from any other container image registry on the internet. You can download the image and push to Artifact Registry or use Cloud NAT to provide outbound internet access for certain private nodes. For more information, see Migrate external containers and Creating a private cluster.

1. Create the sample namespace and the Service Definition in each cluster. In the following command, substitute REVISION with the istiod revision label that you noted from the previous step.

   for CTX in ${CTX_1} ${CTX_2}
   do
       kubectl create --context=${CTX} namespace sample
       kubectl label --context=${CTX} namespace sample \
           istio-injection- istio.io/rev=REVISION --overwrite
   done
   

   where REVISION is the istiod revision label that you previously noted.

   The output is:

   label "istio-injection" not found.
   namespace/sample labeled
   

   You can safely ignore label "istio-injection" not found.

2. Create the HelloWorld service in both clusters:

   kubectl create --context=${CTX_1} \
       -f ${SAMPLES_DIR}/samples/helloworld/helloworld.yaml \
       -l service=helloworld -n sample
   

   kubectl create --context=${CTX_2} \
       -f ${SAMPLES_DIR}/samples/helloworld/helloworld.yaml \
       -l service=helloworld -n sample
   

Deploy HelloWorld v1 and v2 to each cluster

1. Deploy HelloWorld v1 to CLUSTER_1 and v2 to CLUSTER_2, which helps later to verify cross-cluster load balancing:

   kubectl create --context=${CTX_1} \
     -f ${SAMPLES_DIR}/samples/helloworld/helloworld.yaml \
     -l version=v1 -n sample

   kubectl create --context=${CTX_2} \
     -f ${SAMPLES_DIR}/samples/helloworld/helloworld.yaml \
     -l version=v2 -n sample

2. Confirm HelloWorld v1 and v2 are running using the following commands. Verify that the output is similar to that shown.:

   kubectl get pod --context=${CTX_1} -n sample

   NAME                            READY     STATUS    RESTARTS   AGE
   helloworld-v1-86f77cd7bd-cpxhv  2/2       Running   0          40s

   kubectl get pod --context=${CTX_2} -n sample

   NAME                            READY     STATUS    RESTARTS   AGE
   helloworld-v2-758dd55874-6x4t8  2/2       Running   0          40s

Deploy the Sleep service

1. Deploy the Sleep service to both clusters. This pod generates artificial network traffic for demonstration purposes:

   for CTX in ${CTX_1} ${CTX_2}
   do
       kubectl apply --context=${CTX} \
           -f ${SAMPLES_DIR}/samples/sleep/sleep.yaml -n sample
   done
   

2. Wait for the Sleep service to start in each cluster. Verify that the output is similar to that shown:

   kubectl get pod --context=${CTX_1} -n sample -l app=sleep

   NAME                             READY   STATUS    RESTARTS   AGE
   sleep-754684654f-n6bzf           2/2     Running   0          5s

   kubectl get pod --context=${CTX_2} -n sample -l app=sleep

   NAME                             READY   STATUS    RESTARTS   AGE
   sleep-754684654f-dzl9j           2/2     Running   0          5s

Verify cross-cluster load balancing

Call the HelloWorld service several times and check the output to verify alternating replies from v1 and v2:

1. Call the HelloWorld service:

   kubectl exec --context="${CTX_1}" -n sample -c sleep \
       "$(kubectl get pod --context="${CTX_1}" -n sample -l \
       app=sleep -o jsonpath='{.items[0].metadata.name}')" \
       -- /bin/sh -c 'for i in $(seq 1 20); do curl -sS helloworld.sample:5000/hello; done'
   

   The output is similar to that shown:

   Hello version: v2, instance: helloworld-v2-758dd55874-6x4t8
   Hello version: v1, instance: helloworld-v1-86f77cd7bd-cpxhv
   ...

2. Call the HelloWorld service again:

   kubectl exec --context="${CTX_2}" -n sample -c sleep \
       "$(kubectl get pod --context="${CTX_2}" -n sample -l \
       app=sleep -o jsonpath='{.items[0].metadata.name}')" \
       -- /bin/sh -c 'for i in $(seq 1 20); do curl -sS helloworld.sample:5000/hello; done'
   

   The output is similar to that shown:

   Hello version: v2, instance: helloworld-v2-758dd55874-6x4t8
   Hello version: v1, instance: helloworld-v1-86f77cd7bd-cpxhv
   ...

Congratulations, you've verified your load-balanced, multi-cluster Cloud Service Mesh!

Clean up

When you finish verifying load balancing, remove the HelloWorld and Sleep service from your cluster.

kubectl delete ns sample --context ${CTX_1}
kubectl delete ns sample --context ${CTX_2}