Simplifying Multi-Cluster Networking With Cilium and MCS-API: A Technical Deep Dive

This technical deep dive conference talk explores how Cilium implements Multi-Cluster Services API (MCS-API) to simplify networking across multiple Kubernetes clusters. Learn about the Cilium Cluster Mesh architecture and how it extends services across clusters through the MCS-API standard driven by SIG Multicluster. Discover how to create ServiceExport resources to make services available to all clusters, utilize DNS integration through the clusterset.local domain, and implement advanced features like Gateway API. The speakers share their implementation approach, lessons learned, and demonstrate practical scenarios enabled by MCS-API support, including how they cleverly adapted the Kubernetes EndpointSlice controller to reconcile EndpointSlices from remote clusters with minimal code changes. This 27-minute presentation by Arthur Outhenin-Chalandre from Ledger and Marco Iorio from Isovalent at Cisco provides valuable insights for cloud native practitioners working with multi-cluster environments.