Linkerd 2.8 Release Introduces Multi-Cluster Support and Add‑on System
Linkerd 2.8 adds a multi‑cluster extension that securely connects Kubernetes clusters across any network topology, introduces an add‑on plugin system with Jaeger and Grafana support, and includes numerous performance and stability improvements for cloud‑native service mesh deployments.
Today the Linkerd team announced the official release of Linkerd 2.8, which brings a multi‑cluster extension mechanism that enables secure, transparent connections across Kubernetes clusters regardless of network topology.
The multi‑cluster feature aims to provide a unified trust domain, isolate fault domains, support heterogeneous networks, and offer a unified model for intra‑ and inter‑cluster communication, all while remaining completely transparent to application code.
Use cases include cross‑cluster failover, reverse multi‑tenant deployments, and hybrid‑cloud workloads that move between on‑premise and cloud environments.
Linkerd 2.8 also introduces a simple add‑on plugin system. Two plugins are shipped by default:
Jaeger plugin – adds Jaeger and oc‑collector components for distributed tracing.
Grafana plugin (enabled by default) – adds Grafana panels to the Linkerd dashboard, with future support for swapping out the default Prometheus installation.
Additional improvements include new Prometheus configuration options for better Helm chart modularity, proxy metadata tagging for tracing, performance enhancements to reduce contention and latency, and automatic prevention of traffic loops.
The release notes also outline the roadmap for future Linkerd versions, which will extend mTLS to all connections and introduce new policy features.
To try Linkerd 2.8, users can install the stable version with the following command:
curl https://run.linkerd.io/install | sh
Related links and the original announcement are provided for further reading.
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