Journey at the New York Times: Is Sidecar-Less Service Mesh Disappearing I... Lin Sun & Ahmed Bebars
Lin Sun, Ahmed Bebars
KubeCon + CloudNativeCon Europe 2025 · Session
This talk delves into the New York Times' extensive journey with service mesh technologies, culminating in their exploration and adoption of Istio Ambient Mesh. Presented by Lin Sun from Solo.io and Ahmed Bebars from The New York Times, the session provides a candid look at the challenges and benefits of operating a service mesh at scale within a large enterprise, specifically focusing on the transition from traditional sidecar architectures to the more efficient, sidecar-less Ambient Mesh. The speakers highlight how this new architectural paradigm addresses long-standing issues of operational overhead, resource consumption, and application transparency that have historically plagued service mesh deployments.
AI review
This talk from The New York Times and Solo.io delivers a critical deep-dive into Istio Ambient Mesh, directly addressing the long-standing operational and resource overheads of sidecar-based service meshes. It presents a compelling case for the two-layer, sidecar-less architecture, backed by concrete performance benchmarks (25% latency reduction, 50% lower CPU for Z-tunnel) and real-world adoption challenges from a major enterprise. The technical depth, practical implications for large-scale infrastructure, and the clear defensive advantages make this a foundational piece for anyone serious…