Matt Klein on Envoy Mobile, Platform Complexity, and a Universal Data Plane API for Proxies

Envoy's Impact and Adoption

• Envoy is a cloud computing platform that has been adopted by many large cloud vendors. (25s)
• The first EnvoyCon had a much larger attendance than expected, with the organizers having to find a bigger room to accommodate all the attendees. (5m51s)

Envoy's Development and Culture

• Not forming a company around Envoy has allowed for technology-first choices to be made during its development, without the constraints of business concerns. (6m43s)
• Envoy's collaborative development environment, which includes competitors working together, has fostered a positive open source culture that many developers appreciate. (9m28s)

The Rise of Complexity in Technology

• There is a trend of pushback against complexity in technology, particularly regarding Kubernetes and service mesh. (11m18s)
• While these technologies are complex, they are often necessary for companies that have reached a certain scale, particularly those with large engineering teams working on a single product. (15m10s)

When to Consider Kubernetes and Service Mesh

• Technical leaders should start considering technologies like Kubernetes and service mesh when their engineering teams are projected to grow significantly, as waiting too long can lead to being behind the curve. (16m40s)
• Organizations with around 100 developers planning to adopt microservices and grow further should consider the personnel growth implications. (17m7s)

Standardization Efforts

• Standards like Kubernetes, containers, service mesh, Ingress, and SMI are harder to converge on due to market competition and feature additions. (18m31s)
• Envoy XDS APIs, driven by both vendors and end-users, are being used in production and are in the process of being standardized through the Universal Data Plane API Group. (21m21s)

Universal Data Plane API

• Google's gRPC load balancing protocol buffer library is adopting Envoy's XDS discovery APIs. (22m31s)
• There are plans for a universal data plane API that could be used by any vendor or load balancer, including Envoy, gRPC, and potentially HAProxy. (23m55s)

Envoy's Future

• Envoy joining a potential open fast platform would depend on whether cloud vendors see it in their interest to allow it. (27m28s)

Envoy Mobile's Capabilities

• Envoy Mobile aims to expand the capabilities of Envoy to mobile devices using Android and iOS. (2m55s)
• Envoy Mobile provides consistent networking and features like analytics, tracing, and metrics across platforms, similar to Google's Cronet library. (33m1s)

Envoy Mobile's Potential Applications

• XDS could be used to implement real-time traffic shifting and load shedding for mobile applications, potentially replacing current methods like BGP and DNS. (34m7s)
• Envoy could be used in the IoT space, particularly on devices running Linux, to provide similar benefits as Envoy Mobile on Android and iOS. (35m48s)
• Envoy Mobile could enable advanced caching policies for mobile applications, such as caching streaming API data or selectively dropping non-essential data in poor network conditions. (37m19s)

Envoy Mobile's Development and Goals

• Envoy Mobile is being developed to improve application performance and address challenges related to caching, poor networking, offline functionality, and deferred operations. (39m21s)
• The project is open source and available on GitHub, with a goal of releasing an alpha version for the Lyft employee app within the next 8 to 10 weeks. (40m12s)
• The project welcomes collaborators to contribute to design discussions, issue resolution, and development efforts. (40m47s)