The ultimate guide to Kubernetes microservice deployments

Microservices, when deployed on Kubernetes platforms, offer a robust framework for developing and managing complex systems rapidly and reliably. This approach is complemented by service mesh technologies, like Istio, which simplify networking tasks such as routing, security, and traffic management by abstracting these concerns into the infrastructure layer. The article delves into setting up a Continuous Integration/Continuous Delivery (CI/CD) pipeline using Kubernetes and Istio, showcasing the deployment of Google's Online Boutique sample application to an Amazon EKS cluster. It emphasizes configuring high availability, zero downtime deployments, and HTTPS management, while also providing insights into deploying feature branches for integration testing without disrupting the mainline services. The process involves creating EKS clusters with tools like eksctl, managing Kubernetes targets and namespaces within Octopus Deploy, and leveraging Istio for advanced traffic routing, including HTTP and gRPC requests. Additionally, it discusses high availability strategies, such as configuring pod anti-affinity and adjusting deployment replica counts, as well as employing Octopus's blue/green deployment strategy for seamless updates. The article further explores the use of Istio in routing feature branch traffic based on HTTP headers and gRPC metadata, facilitating the testing of new features in isolated environments.