Cilium 1.16: netkit, BGPv2 and Gateway API GAMMA support

2024-07-24 · Publisher : Cilium · Domain : Cloud & DevOps

On 24 July 2024, Cilium 1.16 ships from more than 750 contributors: netkit device, BGPv2 API, Gateway API 1.1 and GAMMA support, median memory down 24% and DNS policies with up to 5x lower tail latency.

### Background On 24 July 2024, the **Cilium** project, eBPF-based Kubernetes networking and security, releases version **1.16.0**: 2,969 commits from more than 750 developers. Isovalent, the vendor behind the project, details the release in a 25 July post. ### Key facts - **netkit**: a new network device for pods, presented as delivering throughput and latency close to host networking. - **BGPv2**: a revamped BGP configuration API, with ClusterIP address advertisement. - Support for Gateway API 1.1 and GAMMA, to manage east-west (service-to-service) traffic through Gateway API. - A new ELF loader cuts median memory usage by 24%; DNS-based network policies see up to 5x lower tail latency. - KVStoreMesh becomes the default ClusterMesh deployment mode, and Hubble accepts CEL filters. ### Why it matters Cilium is one of the CNCF's most active networking projects (more than 750 developers on this release alone), so each release affects platform architecture choices. With 1.16 the project combines performance gains, standard APIs (Gateway API) and observability (Hubble). For an IT services firm, the point of attention is the upgrade: BGPv2 and the L7 proxy or KVStoreMesh changes call for regression testing before production. The release notes count more than 19,300 GitHub stars at announcement time and add ExternalTrafficPolicy support for Ingress and Gateway API. ### Takeaway Cilium 1.16 consolidates eBPF as the basis of Kubernetes networking, with latency and memory gains measured by the project.

Tags : Kubernetes, eBPF, Cloud natif, Open Source, Observabilité