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Traffic Group

The differences between TSB and TSE API

Tetrate Service Express (TSE) utilizes many of the same components as the Tetrate Service Bridge(TSB) product but has the several distinctions. Go to Comparing TSE and TSB for more details.

Traffic Groups allow grouping the proxy workloads in a set of namespaces owned by its parent workspace. Networking and routing related configurations can then be applied on the group to control the behavior of these proxy workloads. The group can be in one of two modes: BRIDGED and DIRECT. BRIDGED mode is a minimalistic mode that allows users to quickly configure the most commonly used features in the service mesh using Tetrate specific APIs, while the DIRECT mode provides more flexibility for power users by allowing them to configure the proxy workload behavior using a restricted subset of Istio Networking APIs.

The following example creates a traffic group for the proxy workloads in ns1, ns2 and ns3 namespaces owned by its parent workspace w1 under tenant mycompany and sets up a TrafficSetting defining the resilience properties for proxy workloads in these namespaces.

apiVersion: traffic.tsb.tetrate.io/v2
kind: Group
metadata:
name: t1
workspace: w1
tenant: tse
organization: tse
spec:
namespaceSelector:
names:
- "*/ns1"
- "*/ns2"
- "*/ns3"
configMode: BRIDGED

And the associated traffic settings for the proxy workloads in the group

apiVersion: traffic.tsb.tetrate.io/v2
kind: TrafficSetting
metadata:
name: defaults
group: t1
workspace: w1
tenant: tse
organization: tse
spec:
resilience:
circuitBreakerSensitivity: MEDIUM

Under the hood, Service Express translates these minimalistic settings into Istio APIs such as Sidecar, DestinationRule, etc. for the namespaces managed by the traffic group. These APIs are then pushed to the Istio control planes of clusters where the workspace is applicable.

It is possible to create a traffic group for namespaces in a specific cluster as long as the parent workspace owns those namespaces in that cluster. For example,

apiVersion: traffic.tsb.tetrate.io/v2
kind: Group
metadata:
name: t1
workspace: w1
tenant: tse
organization: tse
spec:
namespaceSelector:
names:
- "c1/ns1" # pick ns1 namespace only from c1 cluster
- "*/ns2"
- "*/ns3"
configMode: BRIDGED

In the DIRECT mode, it is possible to directly attach Istio APIs such as VirtualService, DestinationRule, and Sidecar to the traffic group. These configurations will be validated for correctness and conflict free operations and then pushed to the appropriate Istio control planes.

The following example declares a DestinationRule with two subsets, for the ratings service in the ns1 namespace:

apiVersion: networking.istio.io/v1beta1
kind: DestinationRule
metadata:
name: ratings-subsets
namespace: ns1
annotations:
tsb.tetrate.io/organization: tse
tsb.tetrate.io/tenant: tse
tsb.tetrate.io/workspace: w1
tsb.tetrate.io/trafficGroup: t1
spec:
host: ratings.ns1.svc.cluster.local
subsets:
- name: stableversion
labels:
app: ratings
env: prod
- name: testversion
labels:
app: ratings
env: uat

The namespace where the Istio APIs are applied will need to be part of the parent traffic group. In addition, each API object will need to have annotations to indicate the organization, tenant, workspace and the traffic group to which it belongs to.

Group

A traffic group manages the routing properties of proxy workloads in a group of namespaces owned by the parent workspace.

FieldDescriptionValidation Rule

namespaceSelector

tetrateio.api.tsb.types.v2.NamespaceSelector
REQUIRED
Set of namespaces owned exclusively by this group. If omitted, applies to all resources owned by the workspace. Use */* to claim all cluster resources under the workspace.

message = {
  required: true
}

configMode

tetrateio.api.tsb.types.v2.ConfigMode
The Configuration types that will be added to this group. BRIDGED mode indicates that configurations added to this group will use Tetrate APIs such as TrafficSetting and ServiceRoute. DIRECT mode indicates that configurations added to this group will use Istio Networking APIs such as VirtualService, DestinationRule, and Sidecar. Defaults to BRIDGED mode.

deletionProtectionEnabled

bool
When set, prevents the resource from being deleted. In order to delete the resource this property needs to be set to false first.

configGenerationMetadata

tetrateio.api.tsb.types.v2.ConfigGenerationMetadata
Default metadata values that will be propagated to the children Istio generated configurations. When using YAML APIs liketctl or gitops, put them into the metadata.labels or metadata.annotations instead. This field is only necessary when using gRPC APIs directly.