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Istio is an open source service mesh that layers transparently onto existing distributed applications. Istio’s powerful features provide a uniform and more efficient way to secure, connect, and monitor services. Istio is the path to load balancing, service-to-service authentication, and monitoring – with few or no service code changes.
- For in-depth information about how to use Istio, visit [istio.io](https://istio.io)
- To ask questions and get assistance from our community, visit [discuss.istio.io](https://discuss.istio.io)
- To learn how to participate in our overall community, visit [our community page](https://istio.io/about/community)
In this README:
- [Introduction](#introduction)
- [Repositories](#repositories)
- [Issue management](#issue-management)
In addition, here are some other documents you may wish to read:
- [Istio Community](https://github.com/istio/community#istio-community) - describes how to get involved and contribute to the Istio project
- [Istio Developer's Guide](https://github.com/istio/istio/wiki/Preparing-for-Development) - explains how to set up and use an Istio development environment
- [Project Conventions](https://github.com/istio/istio/wiki/Development-Conventions) - describes the conventions we use within the code base
- [Creating Fast and Lean Code](https://github.com/istio/istio/wiki/Writing-Fast-and-Lean-Code) - performance-oriented advice and guidelines for the code base
You'll find many other useful documents on our [Wiki](https://github.com/istio/istio/wiki).
## Introduction
[Istio](https://istio.io/latest/docs/concepts/what-is-istio/) is an open platform for providing a uniform way to [integrate
microservices](https://istio.io/latest/docs/examples/microservices-istio/), manage [traffic flow](https://istio.io/latest/docs/concepts/traffic-management/) across microservices, enforce policies
and aggregate telemetry data. Istio's control plane provides an abstraction
layer over the underlying cluster management platform, such as Kubernetes.
Istio is composed of these components:
- **Envoy** - Sidecar proxies per microservice to handle ingress/egress traffic
between services in the cluster and from a service to external
services. The proxies form a _secure microservice mesh_ providing a rich
set of functions like discovery, rich layer-7 routing, circuit breakers,
policy enforcement and telemetry recording/reporting
functions.
> Note: The service mesh is not an overlay network. It
> simplifies and enhances how microservices in an application talk to each
> other over the network provided by the underlying platform.
- **Istiod** - The Istio control plane. It provides service discovery, configuration and certificate management. It consists of the following sub-components:
- **Pilot** - Responsible for configuring the proxies at runtime.
- **Citadel** - Responsible for certificate issuance and rotation.
- **Galley** - Responsible for validating, ingesting, aggregating, transforming and distributing config within Istio.
- **Operator** - The component provides user friendly options to operate the Istio service mesh.
## Repositories
The Istio project is divided across a few GitHub repositories:
- [istio/api](https://github.com/istio/api). This repository defines
component-level APIs and common configuration formats for the Istio platform.
- [istio/community](https://github.com/istio/community). This repository contains
information on the Istio community, including the various documents that govern
the Istio open source project.
- [istio/istio](README.md). This is the main code repository. It hosts Istio's
core components, install artifacts, and sample programs. It includes:
- [istioctl](istioctl/). This directory contains code for the
[_istioctl_](https://istio.io/latest/docs/reference/commands/istioctl/) command line utility.
- [operator](operator/). This directory contains code for the
[Istio Operator](https://istio.io/latest/docs/setup/install/operator/).
- [pilot](pilot/). This directory
contains platform-specific code to populate the
[abstract service model](https://istio.io/docs/concepts/traffic-management/#pilot), dynamically reconfigure the proxies
when the application topology changes, as well as translate
[routing rules](https://istio.io/latest/docs/reference/config/networking/) into proxy specific configuration.
- [security](security/). This directory contains [security](https://istio.io/latest/docs/concepts/security/) related code,
including Citadel (acting as Certificate Authority), citadel agent, etc.
- [istio/proxy](https://github.com/istio/proxy). The Istio proxy contains
extensions to the [Envoy proxy](https://github.com/envoyproxy/envoy) (in the form of
Envoy filters) that support authentication, authorization, and telemetry collection.
## Issue management
We use GitHub to track all of our bugs and feature requests. Each issue we track has a variety of metadata:
- **Epic**. An epic represents a feature area for Istio as a whole. Epics are fairly broad in scope and are basically product-level things.
Each issue is ultimately part of an epic.
- **Milestone**. Each issue is assigned a milestone. This is 0.1, 0.2, ..., or 'Nebulous Future'. The milestone indicates when we
think the issue should get addressed.
- **Priority**. Each issue has a priority which is represented by the column in the [Prioritization](https://github.com/orgs/istio/projects/6) project. Priority can be one of
P0, P1, P2, or >P2. The priority indicates how important it is to address the issue within the milestone. P0 says that the
milestone cannot be considered achieved if the issue isn't resolved.
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Istio is a Cloud Native Computing Foundation project.