10 Best Istio Courses and Certifications Online

Istio, an open-source service mesh platform, has become increasingly popular among developers and DevOps teams for its ability to manage and secure microservices. To learn how to effectively use Istio, many individuals turn to online courses for guidance. This article will provide a review of some of the best Istio courses available online, including an overview of their content and potential benefits for learners.

Here’s a look at the Best Istio Courses and Certifications Online and what they have to offer for you!

10 Best Istio Courses and Certifications Online

1. Istio Hands-On for Kubernetes by Richard Chesterwood, Prageeth Warnak (Udemy) (Our Best Pick)

The course titled “Istio Hands-On for Kubernetes” is instructed by Richard Chesterwood and Prageeth Warnak. The short description of the course invites learners to explore how Istio service mesh can enhance their Kubernetes career with practical, real-world exercises. Istio is a highly discussed framework, and this course provides the opportunity to gain experience in running Istio Service Meshes through hands-on activities.

It is important to note that Istio currently does not support the new Mac M1 architecture, specifically, Ingress gateways do not work. Istio’s support for this architecture is uncertain, and learners may encounter occasional problems during the course. However, the course can be run on personal computers using Minikube, and cloud providers can also be used to run Kubernetes.

The course is designed to be easily understandable and enjoyable while delving into the inner workings of Istio. The details of traffic management, telemetry, visualization, distributed tracing, network traffic monitoring, canary releases, dark releases, Istio VirtualServices and DestinationRules, load balancing and session affinity, resilience testing, circuit breaking/outlier detection, and securing cluster traffic with Mutual TLS are covered.

2. Just Enough Istio to be Dangerous by Gourav Shah (Udemy)

This course, titled “Just Enough Istio to be Dangerous,” is taught by Gourav Shah and offers an opportunity to learn the basics of Istio and why a service mesh is necessary through practical application.

To enroll in this course, it is necessary to have a working knowledge of Kubernetes, including Pods, Deployments, Services, and Ingress, as well as a familiarity with Docker. A Google Cloud Account is also required, with a free subscription available to set up the environment.

The concept of service mesh is gaining popularity, particularly with the arrival of Istio service mesh. This course aims to provide a quick understanding of what Istio is, how it functions, and what features it offers that set it apart from Kubernetes.

The curriculum for this course includes an introduction to the course, as well as a section focusing specifically on Istio.

3. Complete Istio Service Mesh (1.8) Masterclass + AWS EKS 2021 by CS Career Kaizen (元Microsoft現シリバレエンジニア) (Udemy)

The Complete Istio Service Mesh (1.8) Masterclass + AWS EKS 2021 course, taught by CS Career Kaizen, aims to provide hands-on learning of Istio Service Mesh in Kubernetes, specifically using AWS EKS. This course is suitable for those who want to learn how to secure K8s in-cluster network with Istio Service Mesh, those who feel overwhelmed and don’t know where to start with Istio Service Mesh in Kubernetes, and those who want to learn about production-level in-cluster security such as mutual TLS using Istio Service Mesh in Kubernetes. It is also suitable for those who want to learn ins and outs of Istio Service Mesh features, from traffic control to security and observability, from a cloud DevOps working at an US company in SF.

The course covers various aspects of Istio Service Mesh in Kubernetes, including controlling Ingress Traffic, configuring SSL Termination at AWS ELB, canary rollouts/weight-based routing/traffic splitting, identity/header based routing failure recovery features, mirroring live traffic to different versions of app workloads, rate limiting and circuit breaker, default “permissive mode” of mutual TLS in service mesh, and end user authentication and authorization with JWT using Request Authentication and Authorization Policy. The course also covers how to control egress traffic using Service Entry and Virtual Service and how to enable TLS Origination for egress traffic using Destination Rule.

The course is instructed by a cloud DevOps engineer with CKA and certified AWS DevOps pro working at US company in SF, who has been handson with Istio Service Mesh, Kubernetes, AWS, AWS EKS with 6.5+ industry experience in both North America and Europe. The instructor uses diagrams to explain abstract Istio concepts and provides updated knowledge about Istio Service Mesh v1.6~ in 2020. The course is highly hands-on, and every concept is paired with a demo.

4. Service mesh with Istio and Kubernetes by Alexsandro Souza (Udemy)

The Service Mesh with Istio and Kubernetes course, taught by Alexsandro Souza, is designed to teach students how to overcome the most common challenges associated with distributed systems using cutting-edge technologies. To enroll in this course, students should have a basic understanding of Kubernetes and Istio.

Istio is a service mesh that is particularly useful for distributed application architectures, especially those deployed on the cloud with Kubernetes. It offers a wide range of functionality to address communication issues in distributed applications, including service discovery, automatic load balancing, routing, circuit breaking, retries, fail-overs, fault injection, policy enforcement, and metrics, logs, and traces.

In addition to these features, Istio also provides secure service-to-service communication and authentication and authorization, which eliminates the need for manual TLS configuration and Spring Security, respectively. This open-source project offers a bootstrap for distributed system architecture, which can save developers a significant amount of time in configuring their next service mesh.

Throughout the course, students will work on an application example that simulates common communication issues. They will learn how to solve these issues step-by-step in an educational way, including securing communication within the cluster, opening the circuit breaker to avoid sending requests to a failed service, monitoring external calls, load balancing, fault injection, traffic management, securing access with JWT tokens, custom logging, and application monitoring with Kibana, Kiali, and Jagger.

While this course provides an overview of what is possible with Istio and how to achieve it, it does not go into detail on each operation. Students who require a more in-depth understanding of each functionality are advised to take the Istio hands-on for Kubernetes course. The Service Mesh with Istio and Kubernetes course is broken down into an introduction and several sections.

5. Intro to Istio-Service Mesh for Cloud-Native Kubernetes Apps by Kumulus Technologies (Udemy)

The course titled “Intro to Istio-Service Mesh for Cloud-Native Kubernetes Apps” is offered by Kumulus Technologies. The course instructor, Robert Starmer, provides an understanding of how Istio enables efficient management of microservices-based, cloud-native applications. The course consists of concise lectures that explain Kubernetes’ and Istio’s architectures and Istio’s features that simplify microservices management for cloud operators and application developers.

The course concludes with labs that provide instructions on deploying Istio on Kubernetes, deploying an application, and managing its behavior with Istio. The labs include instructions for deploying Istio on Kubernetes locally on a laptop or using Google Cloud Platform’s GKE. No prior knowledge of Kubernetes or Istio is assumed in the course, and it provides fundamental understanding and operational skills for repeating the deployment of k8s and Istio.

The course content is divided into sections that include an introduction, introduction to Istio, Istio functionality, lab prerequisites to get Kubernetes, lab demo 1.1 for Minikube Install, working with Istio, and next steps. The course aims to simplify the complexity of managing polyglot and microservices-based, cloud-native applications, making it an ideal choice for those interested in Istio’s functionality.

6. Istio – Kubernetes Service Mesh Complete Master Course by MUTHUKUMAR Subramanian (Udemy)

This course, titled “Istio – Kubernetes Service Mesh Complete Master Course,” is taught by MUTHUKUMAR Subramanian. The course aims to teach students how to use Istio Service Mesh on Kubernetes to connect, secure, control, and observe applications. Istio’s key capabilities include traffic management, security, and observability.

The course covers various topics related to Istio’s traffic management capabilities, including request routing, fault injection, traffic shifting, circuit breaking, ingress, and egress. It also covers Istio’s observability features, such as metrics collection and visualization using Grafana, distributed tracing using Jaeger, and visualizing mesh using Kiali.

The course also delves into Istio’s security features, including certificate management, authentication, and authorization. The content is divided into several sections, including an introduction, setup and installation, Istio sample application and other useful tools, Istio concepts and foundation, Istio network, observability, security, and reference lectures.

Overall, this course is designed to provide students with a comprehensive understanding of Istio Service Mesh on Kubernetes and how to leverage its capabilities to improve application performance, security, and observability.

7. Ultimate Istio Bootcamp by School of Devops® by Gourav Shah, School of Devops (Udemy)

The Ultimate Istio Bootcamp by School of Devops® is a course that aims to make micro services on Kubernetes resilient, fault-tolerant and add advanced routing features with Istio Service Mesh. Istio service mesh is a new concept that has gained a lot of attention, and this course aims to provide an in-depth understanding of it, including how it works and what features it offers in addition to Kubernetes.

The course takes a byte-sized learning approach and covers all aspects of Istio, including Traffic Management, Advanced Testing, Service Resilience, and Security. The course is structured and breaks down into sections such as “Core Concepts,” “Just enough Kubernetes,” “Just Enough Istio,” “Setting up Environment,” “Traffic Management,” “Making Applications Resilient with Istio,” and “Telemetry.”

The course is designed for those who have experience using Kubernetes and want to learn about Istio, as well as those who want to improve their microservices on Kubernetes. By the end of the course, learners will have a solid understanding of Istio, including its core concepts, traffic management, service resilience, and security features.

8. 米シリコンバレーDevOps監修！Istio Service Mesh ハンズオン+Kubernetes AWS EKS by CS Career Kaizen | CKA & CKS & AWS DevOps Pro (元Microsoft現シリバレエンジニア) (Udemy)

This course, supervised by a former Microsoft engineer and aimed at intermediate to advanced level DevOps professionals with Kubernetes experience, covers the deployment of Istio Service Mesh, along with various best practices for production use. Topics covered include Gateway, Virtual Service, Destination Rule, Weighted Routing, Mirror Live Traffic, Fault Injection, Circuit Breaker, Mutual TLS, TLS Termination, JWT authentication, authorization, and the Kiali dashboard. The course is specifically designed for those managing Kubernetes clusters on AWS EKS or GKE, and is not suitable for application developers or those without interest in Kubernetes cluster building and management. A free preview is available for interested participants.

The course targets those with a minimum of 1-3 months of Docker experience and 1-3 months of Kubernetes knowledge, including understanding of basic K8s objects like Pod, Service, Deployment, Ingress, ConfigMap, and ClusterRole. Those already familiar with Istio Service Mesh theory and practice may not find the course necessary, and those with no experience in Docker or Kubernetes may not be the intended audience. The course offers practical, reproducible labs and visual aids to help improve network security and control within Kubernetes clusters, with a focus on practical application.

The course offers five key reasons for taking the course, including supervision by a Silicon Valley DevOps engineer, visual aids and clear explanations, updated features, hands-on practice, and condensed content for efficient learning. Topics covered in the course include Service Mesh introduction, Istio setup, monitoring, sample app deployment, Traffic Management, Transit Security, JWT authentication, ServiceEntry, and observability/monitoring.

Overall, the course offers a practical and efficient way for experienced DevOps professionals with Kubernetes experience to learn best practices for deploying Istio Service Mesh and improving network security and control within Kubernetes clusters.

9. 【한글자막】 쿠버네티스 이스티오 : 완벽 실습 과정 by Richard Chesterwood, 웅진씽크빅 글로벌 (Udemy)

The course titled “Kubernetes Istio: Complete Practical Course” is presented by Richard Chesterwood and Woongjin Thinkbig Global. The course aims to provide practical experience in running Istio service mesh and enhance the participants’ Kubernetes skills. The course begins with an introduction to Istio, followed by its usage in live projects, practical tips, and an explanation of its internal workings.

The course is designed to be clear, easy to understand, and fun, while providing detailed knowledge of using Istio in production scenarios. Participants will learn about traffic management, telemetry, visualization, distributed tracing, network traffic monitoring, canary deployment, dark deployment, virtual services and destination rules in Istio, load balancing, session affinity, fault injection, circuit breaking, outlier detection, mutual TLS, and cluster traffic protection.

The course can be completed using a mini-cube (requires 8GB host RAM), and it can also be run on cloud providers or any environment that supports Kubernetes. The course instructors provide technical support for queries and doubts through the Q&A section, and participants are encouraged to provide their queries in English for detailed responses.

The course is divided into various sections, including an introduction to the course, getting started, practical demos, Envoy introduction, remote measurement, traffic management, load balancing, gateway, dark deployment, fault injection, circuit breaking, mutual TLS, customizing and installing Istio using istioctl, Istio upgrade, and course conclusion. Istio is a powerful tool that can enhance the participants’ resume and provide a competitive edge in the job market.

Note: As of February 2022, Istio does not support the new Mac M1 architecture, and the ingress gateway is not operational. However, the majority of the course can be completed without issues, and technical support is available for any queries.

10. Istio: Utilizando Service Mesh em um ambiente Kubernetes by Leonardo Romão (Udemy)

This online course titled “Istio: Utilizando Service Mesh em um ambiente Kubernetes” covers the Istio tool from basics to intermediate level. It is designed for those who are new to the tool and wish to implement it in their projects or for those who want to learn the main benefits of using a Service Mesh. The course discusses the benefits and value gains in your environment after configuration on Kubernetes for container management.

The course covers the following topics: Istio installation on Kubernetes, monitoring with ADDONs of Istio (Prometheus, Grafana, Kiali), traffic management, security, and egress. The course provides practical demonstrations of all the content presented, where each command is applied directly to a Linux machine. Students can reproduce and test it on their study machines.

By the end of this course, students will have the foundation to work with Istio and knowledge of necessary commands and concepts for tool administration. Throughout the course, students will receive support for any doubts regarding the subjects studied, and links for consultation and learning from the official documentation will be made available.

The course consists of several sections, including Introduction, Laboratory, First Steps, Basic Concepts, Traffic Management, Security, Egress, and Final. Students can explore the full curriculum available below and also watch the presentation video and some free classes that have been made available.

We wish you good luck on this course and look forward to seeing you in class.