10 Years of Cilium: AMA with Thomas Graf
summary
Project begins in 2015 to replace Docker-era container networking with an eBPF-based stack and later targets Kubernetes; claims production scale with runs at massive scale and adoption by Google GKE. Codebase shows 2,775 commits and over a thousand contributors. IPv6-first design reverses to IPv4 added in nine months. Stack expands into observability, security (Tetragon) and router/switch mitigation inside Cisco, and faces the next challenge of fitting into AI and Windows environments.
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chapters (27)
- 0:0010-year Cilium AMA intro
- 0:21Original Cilium problem
- 1:04First commit to product
- 2:28No eBPF backup plan
- 3:31Hardest Cilium decisions
- 4:53Service mesh vs adoption
- 5:18IPv6-only to IPv4 migration
- 5:39Doubts and milestones
- 6:41Best/worst decisions
- 8:28Cilium beyond networking
- 8:51eBPF future use cases
- 10:15Securing IoT with eBPF
- 10:36Early Cilium contributors
- 11:39Advice for maintainers
- 13:06Personal commit count and contributions
- 13:48Kubernetes adoption surprise
- 14:50Strangest Cilium use cases
- 15:51Cilium naming regrets
- 17:19Cilium future concerns
- 18:25Cilium’s long-term relevance
- 19:08Thomas’s Cilium excitement
- 19:50Advice to 2015 Thomas
- 20:31Upcoming eBPF improvements
- 21:54eBPF as infrastructure language
- 24:01eBPF in modern infra
- 25:28eBPF on non-Linux OS
- 26:35Closing and Q&A
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