Linkerd Playground

Hello and welcome to the Linkerd playground! 

In this playground, you can try out Linkerd for yourself and see how it works. You don't need to worry about installing any complicated software - everything you need is already provided for you.

We're excited for you to dive in and explore the capabilities of Linkerd.

What is Linkerd?

Linkerd is an open-source service mesh for Kubernetes.

A service mesh is a powerful tool for managing the communication between the various microservices that make up a modern application. By providing a dedicated networking layer that sits between these microservices, a service mesh allows them to communicate with each other in a secure and efficient manner.

Benefits of a Service Mesh

One of the key benefits of a service mesh is that it simplifies how you manage the communication of different microservices. This can save you a lot of time and effort, especially when you have many microservices. 

Additionally, a service mesh can be used to implement security policies that protect the microservices from external threats. This might include features such as encryption, authentication, and authorization. These features can help prevent unauthorized access to the application and keep sensitive data safe.

Finally, a service mesh can be used to collect metrics about the performance and behavior of the microservices. This data can be used to monitor the system, identify potential issues, and optimize its performance. By providing a comprehensive view of the entire system, a service mesh can help developers and administrators understand how the microservices in an application are interacting, and make informed decisions about how to improve their performance.

Linkerd Architecture

At a high level, Linkerd has two basic components: a control plane and a data plane.

The control plane provides control over Linkerd as a whole. It consists of several different components that provide whatever the data plane needs to act in a coordinated fashion. It also provides an API to manipulate and measure the data plane (the service mesh) as a whole.

The data plane consists of a bunch of proxies that automatically handle all traffic to and from the services. These proxies run next to each service instance, as sidecar containers in the pods. 

A sidecar container is a separate container within a pod that runs alongside the main application container. In the case of the Linkerd data plane, each service instance has a corresponding Linkerd proxy sidecar container that intercepts incoming and outgoing network requests for that service. 

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Playground Features

The playground comes with a single-node Kubernetes cluster.

Playground Notes

Please note that you can use the playground for 1 hour. If required, you can extend the usage by 15 minutes by clicking on the icon next to the timer icon. 

To get started with a demo app, click on the Getting Started link at the top of the command line. And to access the Linkerd dashboard, click on the Dashboard link.

So why wait? Start exploring Linkerd now!