Open Source Summit Europe 2024

Previous generations of networking made up of point solutions organized by Conway's law are inconsistent, incompatible, and slow down developers. Open source alternatives have emerged to provide compelling networking solutions for Platform Engineers but may overlap. In this talk, we introduce the concept of "the CAKES stack" for modern cloud networking based on OSS projects: (C)ilium, (A)mbient mesh, (K)ubernetes, (E)nvoy, and (S)PIFFE/SPIRE. A twist on the stack, BAKES, includes (B)ackstage.io for a platform's internal developer portal which ties everything together like frosting. Each layer in the "cake" was specifically chosen as it represents the "best of breed" for the role required. These technologies come together to provide a consistent solution for zero trust, observability, ingress/egress, traffic control and significantly improved developer experience and velocity.