1.8 is the last version of Istio to be released in 2020 and it has the following major updates:

• Supports installation and upgrades using Helm 3.
• Mixer was officially removed.
• Added Istio DNS proxy to transparently intercept DNS queries from applications.
• WorkloadGroup has been added to simplify the integration of virtual machines.

WorkloadGroup is a new API object. It is intended to be used with non-Kubernetes workloads like Virtual Machines and is meant to mimic the existing sidecar injection and deployment specification model used for Kubernetes workloads to bootstrap Istio proxies.

Installation and Upgrades

Istio starts to officially support the use of Helm v3 for installations and upgrades. In previous versions, the installation was done with the istioctl command-line tool or Operator. With version 1.8, Istio supports in-place and canary upgrades with Helm.

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