Here Be Services: Beyond the Cluster Boundary with Multicluster Services

The presentation discusses the Multi-Cluster Service API (MCS API) and its implementation in Submariner, a tool for connecting Kubernetes clusters across different networks and clouds.

• The MCS API is a standardized way of managing services across multiple Kubernetes clusters.
• Submariner is a tool that implements the MCS API and allows for easy connectivity between clusters.
• The presentation demonstrates how to set up a headless service in Submariner and access it from a different cluster.
• Other community projects, such as Istio and SIG Network's Gateway API, are also implementing parts of the MCS API.
• The audience is invited to try out Submariner and get involved in the development of the MCS API and other multi-cluster projects.

The presenter sets up two clusters and demonstrates how to access a headless service from one cluster to another using Submariner. They also show how the service can be properly exported using a Submariner tool called Subctl. The presentation emphasizes the importance of standardization and ease of use in managing services across multiple clusters.

For most of Kubernetes history, the edge of the cluster was always a hard boundary that was difficult to traverse. Single clusters can scale up with huge node pools and extensive geographic coverage; but many users prefer to use multiple Kubernetes clusters. This gives them more control, with isolated workloads, manageable latency, and clear data jurisdictions, reducing the effort to provide reliable platforms. However that isolation requires a lot of work to access services from one cluster in another. By using the Multicluster Services API, an OSS standard sponsored by SIG-Multicluster, users with an application spread across multiple clusters can make services available between them using simple Kubernetes object primitives available as CRDs, without needing to install a full service mesh. In this talk, we will explain the concepts and architecture behind the MCS API and walk through demos on Submariner.io and GKE, the two current implementations of the MCS API.