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Mission Applications with Istio Ambient Mode📜

Big Bang enables Istio ambient mode for integrated packages by setting istio.ambient.enabled to true. Mission applications and external Helm charts can require additional namespace, network policy, and authorization policy configuration depending on how they are deployed and whether their chart uses bb-common.

[!IMPORTANT] Where possible, integrate the chart with bb-common. The common library keeps service mesh, network policy, and authorization policy behavior aligned with Big Bang defaults and reduces hand-maintained manifests.

The tutorials use the Parabol community package as a representative mission application. Adjust namespaces, versions, storage, ports, selectors, and package values for the application and target cluster.

Choose a Deployment Path📜

Situation Path
The chart supports bb-common Follow the package’s integration guidance; most ambient resources can be generated by the library.
Big Bang should manage the chart lifecycle, but the chart cannot use bb-common Deploy with the packages key
Argo CD manages the chart outside the Big Bang packages key Deploy with Argo CD
The application temporarily requires sidecar mode Follow the sidecar-mode exception.

Tutorial Order📜

  1. Enable and verify the ambient control plane, then inventory the application’s namespaces, ports, callers, health probes, metrics, and ingress routes.
  2. Complete Prepare an Application. This shared preparation is required for either deployment path.
  3. Choose one deployment tutorial:
  4. Deploy with the packages key when Big Bang manages the chart lifecycle.
  5. Deploy with Argo CD when Argo CD manages the chart independently.
  6. Use the selected tutorial to verify reconciliation, pod readiness, ztunnel enrollment, ingress, and metrics.
  7. Record application-specific policies and recovery requirements with the environment configuration.

The resources in this series cover ambient integration only. Applications can require additional security, storage, identity, backup, or package-specific configuration before they are production-ready.