GAMMA in Action - How Careem Migrated To Istio Without Downtime

Learn how to execute a zero-downtime migration to Istio service mesh through this 28-minute conference talk from KubeCon + CloudNativeCon. Discover Careem's approach to migrating their platform that handles over 5 billion daily Kubernetes-based service requests from their existing service mesh to Istio without increasing infrastructure costs or rewriting service configurations. Explore the strategic use of the Kubernetes Gateway API (GAMMA initiative) to create a "define once, swap many times" model that enabled reusing existing configurations during the transition. Understand how to implement vendor-neutral, Kubernetes-native APIs for routing and traffic policies to overcome operational and extensibility constraints. Examine the integration of Flagger for metrics-driven canary rollouts and gradual traffic shifting to validate production changes safely. Gain insights into executing in-place migrations within the same Kubernetes cluster while maintaining service availability for a multi-service application serving the Middle East market.