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I admit that the "next-gen" word might sound cheesy. As I said in the other reply, the more correct definition for Octelium is: a unified zero trust secure acce

by geoctl 1y ago

I admit that the "next-gen" word might sound cheesy. As I said in the other reply, the more correct definition for Octelium is: a unified zero trust secure access platform. However, as I said this is a term that nobody would relate to. It's a ZTNA/BeyondCorp platform but not in the rigid sense. It's also a WireGuard/QUIC-based remote access VPN but it operates at layer-7 to provide L7 aware access control, secretless access, dynamic configuration and routing as well as OpenTelemtry-native visibility and auditing via identity-aware proxies and policy-decision-points instead of just controlling access at layer-3. As I said, it's designed to be more like a generic Kubernetes-like architecture for secure remote access that can be used for many different use cases.

therealpygon 1y ago
What you took away from that was that “next-gen” was the problem? Buzzwords can still be technically accurate and you seem to be ignoring that when it keeps being confronted. “But it is” doesn’t matter when it comes to “but it sounds like”. Let me give you an example; if I was walk into a store, do you think I want to talk to the person who talks about the “bidirectional optoelectromechanical document transcription and reproduction apparatus implementing discrete photonic acquisition and microdeposition techniques for bidimensional substrate encoding”, or do I want to talk to the person who will sell me a “photocopier”?
maxmcd 1y ago
I think "no buzzwords" would be further in the direction of: "This software let's you set up peer to peer networking between your devices, expose them to the internet, run applications on them, view useful runtime information, and integrate easily with cloud providers and infrastructure you're familiar with."
- geoctl 1y ago
  Thank you. Octelium, however, does not operate as p2p and does not directly connect devices since that by itself contradicts the whole point of zero trust. It provides remote access to resources, or even sub-resources via L7 access control (e.g. allow access to some HTTP paths to some users based on identity/context/request content, etc...), not completely to "devices" or to complete subnets.
  - dudeinjapan 1y ago
    How about: “Octelium is a secure, policy-based access gateway to your HTTP services, with both VPN tunnel-based and OAuth/zero-trust modes available. (And it can do a lot more!)”
    - geoctl 1y ago
      Thank you. I think your description is great but I, as a user myself, might see it as an identity-aware proxy (i.e. something like Pomerium and Ory Oathkeeper IaPs which are great projects) as opposed to a complete Kubernetes-tier platform that does the entire process of remote access, access control, visibility and auditing, user and identtiy management, centralized policy management, etc... from a data-plane and control-plane perspective for an arbitrary number of resources that need to be protected.
      - dudeinjapan 1y ago
        Much of this writing is about finding the right level of detail to communicate the core ideas. “Octelium is a full-featured access control platform, which provides API gateways and/or VPN tunnels to your HTTP services, paired with an intuitive user, policy, and auditing backplane and policy-as-code.” Something like the above would be much more enticing to potential users including myself. I can get a rough idea of what I can actually use it for and how it can be integrated into my existing stack—and if there are more features I’ll be pleasantly surprised when I read the docs!
        geoctl 1y ago
        I completely agree with you. And tbqh since almost everybody in the thread is complaining about the README then I must be really doing something wrong explaining Octelium and what it does. I will certainly put more effort to make the README and especially the main description section more useful and easier to understand without transforming it into more of a marketing pitch. As I mentioned in other replies, it's actually really hard to concisely describe fairly complex projects (e.g. Kubernetes, Istio, etc...), especially to newcomers. But I will definitely do my best to improve the docs and README. Thank you really for your insightful comments.
sureglymop 1y ago
I think the issue here is that while these terms may be very familiar to you (and to me personally also), they are not at all familiar to most people who will encounter your project. Thus, those people coming across your project may quickly overlook it instead of giving it a chance which is disappointing. By contrast, here is Tailscales tagline: "Fast, seamless device connectivity — no hardware, no firewall rules, no wasted time." That kind of tells even a non-technical user what it is for even if it dumbs down all it can do. That user then doesn't need to know any technical jargon or how it works under the hood or even what wireguard is at all. The tagline is what prompts them to install and try it out and from there the UX is the deciding factor in whether they keep using it or not.
- geoctl 1y ago
  Thank you. I completely understand your point. But as mentioned in the other replies. Octelium is designed to be much more than just a VPN. It is not even tied to provide remote access to "devices" or resources behind NAT. It's zero trust architecture that's equally designed to provide access to internal resources and publicly protected resources such as SaaS APIs, databases, Kubernetes APIservers, SSH, etc... It provides both client-based (i.e. VPN-like) access as well as clientless access for both humans and workloads. For example, Humans can just use their browsers to access internal resources behind NAT like a typical protected SaaS resource. Workloads written in any programming language can access protected HTTP/gRPC APIs, Kubernetes, etc... via standard OAuth2 and bearer authentication without using any clients or special SDKs even such protected resources are protected by different API keys/access tokens.
  - sureglymop 1y ago
    But that's what I'm getting at. Even if it is much more, is all of that immediately relevant to a curious/potential new user? I understand it may not be easy to narrow down the explanation, especially if you invested a lot of time and don't want to do a disservice to yourself by underselling it. Looking at the Tailscale tagline I quoted, it is small and ambiguous enough that it works marketing wise, regardless of all the features and solutions they offer. But it was just an example, I should maybe have used a totally different example of a product that is not in the same realm as yours. The explanation you gave to me here is good but only because I vaguely know what all this jargon means. Try to think of a short simple sentence that a non-expert could understand.
jcul 1y ago
To be fair, I wouldn't call these buzz works, maybe just "next-gen". Rather one could argue they are technical jargon? But then if the technical jargon is over someone's head, maybe they are not the target audience. I understood most of it, but it is quite dense for the first paragraph.

by geoctl 1y ago

therealpygon 1y ago

What you took away from that was that “next-gen” was the problem? Buzzwords can still be technically accurate and you seem to be ignoring that when it keeps being confronted. “But it is” doesn’t matter when it comes to “but it sounds like”. Let me give you an example; if I was walk into a store, do you think I want to talk to the person who talks about the “bidirectional optoelectromechanical document transcription and reproduction apparatus implementing discrete photonic acquisition and microdeposition techniques for bidimensional substrate encoding”, or do I want to talk to the person who will sell me a “photocopier”?

maxmcd 1y ago

I think "no buzzwords" would be further in the direction of: "This software let's you set up peer to peer networking between your devices, expose them to the internet, run applications on them, view useful runtime information, and integrate easily with cloud providers and infrastructure you're familiar with."

geoctl 1y ago
Thank you. Octelium, however, does not operate as p2p and does not directly connect devices since that by itself contradicts the whole point of zero trust. It provides remote access to resources, or even sub-resources via L7 access control (e.g. allow access to some HTTP paths to some users based on identity/context/request content, etc...), not completely to "devices" or to complete subnets.
- dudeinjapan 1y ago
  How about: “Octelium is a secure, policy-based access gateway to your HTTP services, with both VPN tunnel-based and OAuth/zero-trust modes available. (And it can do a lot more!)”
  - geoctl 1y ago
    Thank you. I think your description is great but I, as a user myself, might see it as an identity-aware proxy (i.e. something like Pomerium and Ory Oathkeeper IaPs which are great projects) as opposed to a complete Kubernetes-tier platform that does the entire process of remote access, access control, visibility and auditing, user and identtiy management, centralized policy management, etc... from a data-plane and control-plane perspective for an arbitrary number of resources that need to be protected.
    - dudeinjapan 1y ago
      Much of this writing is about finding the right level of detail to communicate the core ideas. “Octelium is a full-featured access control platform, which provides API gateways and/or VPN tunnels to your HTTP services, paired with an intuitive user, policy, and auditing backplane and policy-as-code.” Something like the above would be much more enticing to potential users including myself. I can get a rough idea of what I can actually use it for and how it can be integrated into my existing stack—and if there are more features I’ll be pleasantly surprised when I read the docs!
      - geoctl 1y ago
        I completely agree with you. And tbqh since almost everybody in the thread is complaining about the README then I must be really doing something wrong explaining Octelium and what it does. I will certainly put more effort to make the README and especially the main description section more useful and easier to understand without transforming it into more of a marketing pitch. As I mentioned in other replies, it's actually really hard to concisely describe fairly complex projects (e.g. Kubernetes, Istio, etc...), especially to newcomers. But I will definitely do my best to improve the docs and README. Thank you really for your insightful comments.

sureglymop 1y ago

I think the issue here is that while these terms may be very familiar to you (and to me personally also), they are not at all familiar to most people who will encounter your project. Thus, those people coming across your project may quickly overlook it instead of giving it a chance which is disappointing. By contrast, here is Tailscales tagline: "Fast, seamless device connectivity — no hardware, no firewall rules, no wasted time." That kind of tells even a non-technical user what it is for even if it dumbs down all it can do. That user then doesn't need to know any technical jargon or how it works under the hood or even what wireguard is at all. The tagline is what prompts them to install and try it out and from there the UX is the deciding factor in whether they keep using it or not.

geoctl 1y ago
Thank you. I completely understand your point. But as mentioned in the other replies. Octelium is designed to be much more than just a VPN. It is not even tied to provide remote access to "devices" or resources behind NAT. It's zero trust architecture that's equally designed to provide access to internal resources and publicly protected resources such as SaaS APIs, databases, Kubernetes APIservers, SSH, etc... It provides both client-based (i.e. VPN-like) access as well as clientless access for both humans and workloads. For example, Humans can just use their browsers to access internal resources behind NAT like a typical protected SaaS resource. Workloads written in any programming language can access protected HTTP/gRPC APIs, Kubernetes, etc... via standard OAuth2 and bearer authentication without using any clients or special SDKs even such protected resources are protected by different API keys/access tokens.
- sureglymop 1y ago
  But that's what I'm getting at. Even if it is much more, is all of that immediately relevant to a curious/potential new user? I understand it may not be easy to narrow down the explanation, especially if you invested a lot of time and don't want to do a disservice to yourself by underselling it. Looking at the Tailscale tagline I quoted, it is small and ambiguous enough that it works marketing wise, regardless of all the features and solutions they offer. But it was just an example, I should maybe have used a totally different example of a product that is not in the same realm as yours. The explanation you gave to me here is good but only because I vaguely know what all this jargon means. Try to think of a short simple sentence that a non-expert could understand.

jcul 1y ago

To be fair, I wouldn't call these buzz works, maybe just "next-gen". Rather one could argue they are technical jargon? But then if the technical jargon is over someone's head, maybe they are not the target audience. I understood most of it, but it is quite dense for the first paragraph.