# Kubernetes istio

**URL:** <https://discuss.elastic.co/t/kubernetes-istio/182757>\
**Category:** APM\
**Created:** [May 25, 2019, 1:29pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/kubernetes-istio/182757 "2019-05-25T13:29:56Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![suikast42](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/suikast42/32/29865_2.png) [@suikast42](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/suikast42)\
**Post date:** [May 25, 2019, 1:29pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/kubernetes-istio/182757/1 "2019-05-25T13:29:56Z")

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Does elastic apm supports out of box trace a service mesh with istio in kubernetes environment?

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**Author:** ![axw](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/axw/32/28197_2.png) [@axw](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/axw)\
**Post date:** [May 26, 2019, 3:22am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/kubernetes-istio/182757/2 "2019-05-26T03:22:42Z")

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We have done some investigation. It is possible to implement an Istio Mixer adapter that would export trace data to Elastic APM, but there are currently some limitations around trace header propagation. Once W3C Trace-Context is supported by Envoy, which underlies Istio, it should be more practical.

TL;DR: it's on our radar 🙂

It would be great to hear a bit about what you would expect from Istio integration, particularly what you would expect to gain by tracing at the mesh level vs. your applications. Bear in mind that your application would still need to propagate the distributed tracing headers: [https://istio.io/docs/tasks/telemetry/distributed-tracing/overview/](https://istio.io/docs/tasks/telemetry/distributed-tracing/overview/).

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**Author:** ![suikast42](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/suikast42/32/29865_2.png) [@suikast42](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/suikast42)\
**Post date:** [May 29, 2019, 2:23pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/kubernetes-istio/182757/3 "2019-05-29T14:23:07Z")

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> [@axw](#):
>
> TL;DR: it's on our radar 🙂

Excat I wanted to know 🙂

> [@axw](#):
>
> your application would still need to propagate the distributed tracing headers:

Sure. Even the meshing has it's boundary 😃

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**Author:** ![system](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/original/3X/1/a/1ac57faf039f6b580b3f104ef42a2a89e41014de.png) [@system](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/system)\
**Post date:** [June 19, 2019, 10:23am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/kubernetes-istio/182757/4 "2019-06-19T10:23:13Z")

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