Cilium Feature Proposal

Is your proposed feature related to a problem?

Yes. The current Cilium Clustermesh implementation distributes all endpoints and identities across connected clusters. While this ensures full visibility, it introduces significant scalability challenges as the number of clusters, endpoints, and identities increases. In large-scale deployments, this results in high memory consumption and operational inefficiencies, limiting the ability to scale Clustermesh effectively.

Describe the feature you'd like

We propose introducing a new “scoped-export” mode for the Clustermesh API server. This mode restricts cross-cluster propagation to only those endpoints and identities that are fronted by global services. The goal is to reduce the volume of data shared across clusters while preserving essential service connectivity and policy enforcement for global services.

Key requirements include:

Maintain full cross-cluster visibility for endpoints and identities associated with global services.
Avoid propagating endpoints and identities not tied to global services.
Ensure backward compatibility with existing Clustermesh deployments.
Support dynamic updates based on service lifecycle events.

(Optional) Describe your proposed solution
Current proposal: cilium/design-cfps#74
Previous Design Document:

CFP-39876