Istio solves lots of problems (pod-to-pod encryption, telemetry, etc). It also enables lots of functionality when it comes to CD. It enables things like canary

Istio solves lots of problems (pod-to-pod encryption, telemetry, etc). It also enables lots of functionality when it comes to CD. It enables things like canary releases, testing, rollback etc etc in a simpler way by keeping it in the Kubernetes space (and not relying on slow external LBs). You probably won't know why you need Istio till you need it.