#Deploying the Bookinfo application in ambient mode

You can deploy the Bookinfo sample application in ambient mode without sidecar injection by relying on the ZTunnel proxy. For background on the Bookinfo application, see Deploying the Bookinfo Application.

#Prerequisites

• An active ACP CLI (kubectl) session by a cluster administrator with the cluster-admin role.
• You have istioctl installed locally so that you can use to run these instructions.
• Alauda Service Mesh Operator 2.1.1 or later is installed the Istio resource has been created, and the Operator has deployed Istio.
• An IstioCNI resource has been created, and the Operator has deployed the required IstioCNI pods.
• A ZTunnel resource has been created, and the Operator has deployed the required ZTunnel pods.

#Procedure

1. Create the bookinfo namespace:

   kubectl create namespace bookinfo

2. Add the istio-discovery=enabled label to the bookinfo namespace:

   kubectl label namespace bookinfo istio-discovery=enabled

3. Deploy the Bookinfo application:

   kubectl apply -n bookinfo -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/istio/istio/refs/heads/master/samples/bookinfo/platform/kube/bookinfo.yaml

   Apply the bookinfo-versions YAML file to create multiple versions of the Bookinfo services:

   kubectl apply -n bookinfo -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/istio/istio/refs/heads/master/samples/bookinfo/platform/kube/bookinfo-versions.yaml

4. Verify that the Bookinfo pods are running:

   kubectl get pods -n bookinfo

   Example output

   NAME                              READY   STATUS    RESTARTS   AGE
   details-v1-569946bc86-f5xks       1/1     Running   0          2m30s
   productpage-v1-6c76dd65f7-tk5mr   1/1     Running   0          2m29s
   ratings-v1-5fd569d7c8-5x778       1/1     Running   0          2m30s
   reviews-v1-7668bf774d-qvpjh       1/1     Running   0          2m30s
   reviews-v2-55dd985686-bxv5v       1/1     Running   0          2m29s
   reviews-v3-5d7d6bddd8-2wr5w       1/1     Running   0          2m29s

5. Confirm that the Bookinfo application is responding:

   kubectl exec "$(kubectl get pod -l app=ratings -n bookinfo \
     -o jsonpath='{.items[0].metadata.name}')" \
     -c ratings -n bookinfo \
     -- curl -sS productpage:9080/productpage | grep -o "<title>.*</title>"

   Example output

   <title>Simple Bookstore App</title>

6. Enroll the Bookinfo application in the ambient mesh by labeling either the entire namespace or individual pods:

   • To include all workloads in the bookinfo namespace:

     kubectl label namespace bookinfo istio.io/dataplane-mode=ambient

   • To include only specific workloads, apply the istio.io/dataplane-mode=ambient label directly to individual pods. See the Additional resources section for details on the labels used to add or exclude workloads from the mesh.

     NOTE

     Enrolling workloads in the ambient mesh does not require restarting or redeploying application pods. Unlike sidecar mode, the number of containers in each pod remains unchanged.

7. Confirm that the ZTunnel proxy has successfully established listening sockets in the pod network namespaces:

   istioctl -n ztunnel ztunnel-config workloads

   After adding bookinfo namespace to the Ambient mesh, you would see HBONE protocol.

   Example output

   NAMESPACE    POD NAME                        ADDRESS    NODE           WAYPOINT PROTOCOL
   bookinfo     details-v1-569946bc86-f5xks     10.3.0.143 192.168.131.32 None     HBONE
   bookinfo     productpage-v1-6c76dd65f7-tk5mr 10.3.0.148 192.168.131.32 None     HBONE
   bookinfo     ratings-v1-5fd569d7c8-5x778     10.3.0.144 192.168.131.32 None     HBONE
   bookinfo     reviews-v1-7668bf774d-qvpjh     10.3.0.145 192.168.131.32 None     HBONE
   bookinfo     reviews-v2-55dd985686-bxv5v     10.3.0.146 192.168.131.32 None     HBONE
   bookinfo     reviews-v3-5d7d6bddd8-2wr5w     10.3.0.147 192.168.131.32 None     HBONE
   istio-cni    istio-cni-node-vfrbr            10.3.0.140 192.168.131.32 None     TCP
   istio-system istiod-57f9449cdd-56gl8         10.3.0.141 192.168.131.32 None     TCP
   ztunnel      ztunnel-lf7c9                   10.3.0.142 192.168.131.32 None     TCP

#Cleanup

# Remove the namespace from the ambient data plane
kubectl label namespace bookinfo istio.io/dataplane-mode-
# Remove the Bookinfo namespace
kubectl delete namespace bookinfo

#Additional resources

• Adding workloads to a mesh in ambient mode (Istio documentation)