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How does Cilium compare to HA-Proxy or Traefik? Are they operating in the same realm or is that on another layer?

hardwaresofton 8y ago
They're completely different products for different uses -- Cilium is a overlay networking solution (so, more than one program working together) for use inside container orchestration frameworks like Kubernetes/Mesos/Nomad, where as HAProxy/Traefik are applications that do reverse proxying and load balancing. Cilium may happen to do some proxying and balancing but you dont do things like "add a backend to Cilium" -- you "add a backend" to Kubernetes, Cilium is handling your networking, so it sees that, and ensure your frontend (which is already deployed let's say) inside the same kubernetes cluster can speak to the backend when it reaches out for it. HAProxy is a TCP-only reverse proxy and load balancer similar to NGINX. Traefik is a reverse proxy and load balancer (currently HTTP only I believe) built relatively recently with modern features like a HTTP administration interface, OpenTracing compliant (IIRC) request tracing, let's encrypt for certs, and automatic polling of a container orchestration layer (if you have one) to populate backends/frontends.
- dankohn1 8y ago
  All cloud native networking options, including Cilium: https://landscape.cncf.io/category=cloud-native-network&format=card-mode&grouping=category https://landscape.cncf.io/category=cloud-native-network&form... All service proxies, include HAProxy, NGINX, and Traefik: https://landscape.cncf.io/category=service-proxy&format=card-mode&grouping=category https://landscape.cncf.io/category=service-proxy&format=card...
- dnautics 8y ago
  This seems cool, but maybe I don't understand something... Wouldn't your frontend and your backend be in the same kubernetes cluster?
  - hardwaresofton 8y ago
    Yeah, they would be -- Cilium handles your inter-cluster routing first and foremost (making sure those two things can talk to each other, and have a unique IP, which is a requirement of Kubernetes). Some companies that are trying to do multi-cloud or really large kubernetes installations (or just multi-tenancy) are finding that they have to split up the clusters for isolation or availability as well, so now Cilium offers a solution for that as well.
    - dnautics 8y ago
      Thank you for explaining!
      - hardwaresofton 8y ago
        No problem! Counting on the HN community to speak up and correct any mistakes I may have made :)

They're completely different products for different uses -- Cilium is a overlay networking solution (so, more than one program working together) for use inside container orchestration frameworks like Kubernetes/Mesos/Nomad, where as HAProxy/Traefik are applications that do reverse proxying and load balancing. Cilium may happen to do some proxying and balancing but you dont do things like "add a backend to Cilium" -- you "add a backend" to Kubernetes, Cilium is handling your networking, so it sees that, and ensure your frontend (which is already deployed let's say) inside the same kubernetes cluster can speak to the backend when it reaches out for it. HAProxy is a TCP-only reverse proxy and load balancer similar to NGINX. Traefik is a reverse proxy and load balancer (currently HTTP only I believe) built relatively recently with modern features like a HTTP administration interface, OpenTracing compliant (IIRC) request tracing, let's encrypt for certs, and automatic polling of a container orchestration layer (if you have one) to populate backends/frontends.

dankohn1 8y ago
All cloud native networking options, including Cilium: https://landscape.cncf.io/category=cloud-native-network&format=card-mode&grouping=category https://landscape.cncf.io/category=cloud-native-network&form... All service proxies, include HAProxy, NGINX, and Traefik: https://landscape.cncf.io/category=service-proxy&format=card-mode&grouping=category https://landscape.cncf.io/category=service-proxy&format=card...
dnautics 8y ago
This seems cool, but maybe I don't understand something... Wouldn't your frontend and your backend be in the same kubernetes cluster?
- hardwaresofton 8y ago
  Yeah, they would be -- Cilium handles your inter-cluster routing first and foremost (making sure those two things can talk to each other, and have a unique IP, which is a requirement of Kubernetes). Some companies that are trying to do multi-cloud or really large kubernetes installations (or just multi-tenancy) are finding that they have to split up the clusters for isolation or availability as well, so now Cilium offers a solution for that as well.
  - dnautics 8y ago
    Thank you for explaining!
    - hardwaresofton 8y ago
      No problem! Counting on the HN community to speak up and correct any mistakes I may have made :)