What is envoyproxy.io?
Envoy is an open source edge and service proxy specifically engineered for cloud-native applications. It operates as a high-performance C++ distributed proxy that runs alongside each application, abstracting network complexities and delivering consistent features across diverse platforms. Originally developed at Lyft, this solution addresses common operational challenges in distributed architectures by focusing on networking and observability improvements.
The proxy functions as a communication bus and universal data plane within large microservice service mesh environments. Built upon insights from technologies like NGINX, HAProxy, and cloud load balancers, Envoy enables comprehensive traffic management when deployed across an infrastructure. This architecture facilitates easier problem visualization through consistent observability, performance optimization, and centralized implementation of substrate features.
Features
- Out of process architecture: Self-contained high-performance server with small memory footprint that runs alongside any application language or framework
- HTTP/2 and gRPC support: First class support for HTTP/2 and gRPC for both incoming and outgoing connections with transparent HTTP/1.1 to HTTP/2 proxy capability
- Advanced load balancing: Supports automatic retries, circuit breaking, global rate limiting, request shadowing, and zone local load balancing
- APIs for configuration management: Provides robust APIs for dynamically managing configuration settings
- Observability: Delivers deep observability of L7 traffic with native support for distributed tracing and wire-level observability for MongoDB and DynamoDB
Use Cases
- Implementing service mesh architectures for microservices
- Load balancing traffic across distributed applications
- Monitoring and observing network traffic in cloud-native environments
- Managing API gateways for enterprise applications
- Improving resilience and observability in microservice deployments
