The Envoy xDS protocol forms the backbone of the Envoy v2 discovery APIs but understanding the the details can be pretty challenging. Remembering the differences between the CDS, LDS, EDS, and RDS is tough, let alone figuring out how they work under the hood! The documentation for the xDS protocol can be hard to understand for beginners and there are a few subtleties to consider while building an implementation. This talk explores the design of the xDS protocol through the lens of our experience building a management server implementation. Over the course of this talk we’ll cover the basics of the lifecycle of xDS gRPC connections and the way configuration updates are delivered to Envoy. Attendees will hopefully come away with a clearer understanding of the internals of the protocol that underlies Isito and Envoy’s Go Control Plane and will be equipped with an understanding of where to look to start building xDS implementations themselves!
