Why Service Mesh Maturity Is Critical to Kubernetes Success | AppDevANGLE

By 2026, 65% of enterprises will rely on partners to manage complex, cloud-native workloads—and service mesh adoption is playing a critical role in that transformation. In this episode of AppDevANGLE, Paul Nashawaty, Practice Lead at theCUBE Research, is joined by William Morgan, CEO of Buoyant and co-creator of Linkerd, the first CNCF-graduated service mesh, to explore the evolution of service mesh adoption and the real-world strategies for achieving operational simplicity at scale. From multi-cluster connectivity and mesh expansion to GitOps, Windows, and VM support, this discussion breaks down how Linkerd is helping organizations overcome complexity and build production-grade Kubernetes platforms that are secure, observable, and resilient. Topics Covered: Service Mesh: Then and Now Operational Simplicity Over Hype Multi-Cluster at Scale Mesh Expansion: Beyond Kubernetes GitOps, DevOps, and Platform Engineering Debunking the “Too Complex” Myth Key Takeaways: Service mesh is no longer experimental—it’s enterprise essential. Linkerd's evolution shows how simplicity, security, and scalability can coexist in production-grade environments. Whether you're supporting LLMs, distributed AI workloads, or migrating legacy apps to Kubernetes, a service mesh ensures reliability, observability, and agility. 00:00 - Intro 00:05 - Comprehensive Insights into Service Mesh Adoption and Linkerd's Role 03:12 - Streamlining Multi-Cluster Communication: Simplifying Service Mesh Complexities with Linkerd 2.18 07:45 - Expanding Horizons: Enterprise Adoption and Cross-Platform Support of Service Meshes 11:16 - Maturity and Evolution of Service Meshes 13:20 - Enhancing Distributed Systems: The Evolution and Customer-Centric Approach of Linkerd 15:33 - Pathways to Knowledge and Future Horizons