Meet Isovalent at KubeCon

Isovalent Sessions at KubeCon and Co-Located Events

• Cloud Native Rejekts

  Unleashing the Tides of Kubernetes Networking by Removing kube-proxy

  Like Amsterdam’s canals, Kubernetes networking depends on careful flow control to keep everything connected. kube-proxy is often used to manage that flow, directing packets through layers of iptables rules, but as clusters grow, these artificial locks and gates start to slow the current. What happens when we open the sluices and let traffic flow freely without the constraints of kube-proxy?

  Speaker: Tomasz Tarczyński, Isovalent at Cisco

  When: Saturday March 21, 14:05 - 14:35 CET

  Where: Miro HQ, Room 2

• Maintainer Summit

  The Practices That Made Me Go 'Wow': What Every CNCF Project Can Learn From Envoy

  After becoming Envoy maintainers, we discovered not just a codebase but a playbook for sustainable open source at scale: automated deprecation tracking (including PR tagging releases later), CI that runs sanitizer builds and continuous fuzzing via OSS-Fuzz, and processes that keep a 2M+ line codebase reliably green. This talk shares the most surprising, broadly adoptable practices; runtime feature guards with deprecation timelines, automated issue creation for cleanup, scalable test ownership, CI health strategies, and strong review/code-ownership policies, so you can reduce maintainer burden and improve backward compatibility in projects of any size.

  Speakers: Kateryna Nezdolii, Isovalent at Cisco & Rohit Agrawal, Databricks

  When: Sunday March 22, 17:05 - 17:40 CET

  Where: E103-105

• Observability Day

  Observability Project Updates

  Get the latest news on the cloud-native observability landscape! This session provides rapid-fire updates across several key CNCF projects. Highlighting the agenda, Donia will dive into the latest Cilium 1.19 release. Discover how the new Hubble flow filtering by IP Packet Trace ID lets you follow each packet across your network, along with powerful improvements to flow log aggregation and more.

  Speakers: Donia Chaiehloudj, Isovalent at Cisco, Adriana Villela, Dynatrace, Saswata Mukherjee, Red Hat, Arianna Vespri, OllyGarden, Eduardo Silva, Chronosphere, Dotan Horovits & Charlie Le

  When: Monday March 23, 9:10 - 9:40 CET

  Where: Forum (Ground Floor)

• Project Lightning Talk

  Translating eBPF Into Business Value: Lessons From The Cilium Website

  Over the past four years, I’ve built out the Cilium website to translate deep eBPF capabilities into clear business outcomes through case studies, industry verticals, and real-world results around performance, cost, and security. This lightning talk shares what worked, what didn’t, and the patterns I've developed to communicate business value without watering down technical credibility.

  Speaker: Bill Mulligan, Isovalent at Cisco

  When: Monday March 23, 9:52 - 9:57 CET

  Where: Elicium 2

• VM on Kubernetes Day

  Networking for KubeVirt

  Networking is a critical pillar for successfully running VMs on Kubernetes in production. In this session, Ray will dive into the networking architecture for KubeVirt, demonstrating the latest and greatest features from Isovalent designed specifically for virtualization.

  Speaker: Raymond de Jong, Isovalent at Cisco

  When: Monday March 23, 13:35 - 14:05 CET

  Where: nhow Amsterdam RAI

• ArgoCon, Scalability

  Network Segmentation at Scale: GitOps-Driven Multi-Tenant Isolation With Argo CD

  Argo CD is built with multitenancy in mind—but what does production-grade multitenancy actually look like? This talk walks through the key considerations for building an isolated multi-tenant platform, including how to GitOps hundreds of tenants without a network policy nightmare, tenant isolation patterns using Cilium Network Policies managed via Argo CD, Argo CD network best practices, and Projects/RBAC strategies for self-service and audit-ready compliance. We’ll share common pitfalls and tested patterns from real-world production systems.

  Speakers: Christian Hernandez, Isovalent at Cisco & Luke Philips, FICO

  When: Monday March 23, 14:45-15:10 CET

  Where: G102-103

• CiliumCon Keynote

  Built in the Open: Why Cisco Is Betting on Cilium, eBPF and Tetragon

  The most important infrastructure standards of the next decade are being built in the open by communities, code, and ecosystems that scale far beyond any single product or platform.
  At the core of this shift for Cisco are Cilium, eBPF, and Tetragon which are defining how networking, security, and observability are built in the multi cloud world. By investing upstream in Cilium, eBPF, and Tetragon, Cisco is aligning product innovation with community driven standards ensuring that what runs in Kubernetes today can extend consistently across clouds, data centers, and the network itself.

  Speaker: Bill Mulligan, Isovalent at Cisco

  When: Monday March 23, 14:55 - 15:00 CET

  Where: Elicium 1

  • Watch the recording

• KubeAuto Day

  Even in 2026, Networking Is Still Critical

  Kubernetes networking is more than YAML and hope. This talk demystifies the full stack of packets, microservices, DNS, Ingress, Gateway API and looks ahead at what networking means in the age of AI and MCP.
  Come curious. Leave dangerous.

  Speaker: Marino Wijay, Isovalent at Cisco

  When: Monday March 23, 16:00 - 16:30 CET

  Where: Amstel Boathouse

• CiliumCon Lightning Talk

  What's Happening in Cilium? Current Projects You Need To See

  Cilium is one of the most active CNCF projects. Recently, it crossed 1000 unique contributors mark.
  In this lightning talk, Martynas will present major developments currently happening in the Cilium ecosystem. Where possible, we will include short video recordings from the project authors themselves, giving them the opportunity to introduce their work directly to the audience.
  You should expect a fast-paced visual update that highlights the development of the cutting edge cloud native networking.

  Speaker: Martynas Pumputis, Isovalent at Cisco

  When: Monday March 23, 17:00 - 17:10 CET

  Where: Elicium 1

• Maintainer Track

  Gateway API: Bridging the Gap from Ingress to the Future

  Gateway API is quickly becoming a core building block for cloud native networking, and a lot has changed in the last six months. This session covers the latest improvements and what’s coming next, especially as more users evaluate Gateway API ahead of the ingress-nginx archival. We’ll focus on reducing migration friction with ingress2gateway, better integrations with cert-manager and external-dns, and stronger TLS handling, including ListenerSet moving toward Standard to give Ingress users a more familiar experience while retaining Gateway API’s security benefits.

  Speakers: Nick Young & James Strong, Isovalent at Cisco, Katarzyna Łach & Rostislav Bobrovsky, Google, Norwin Schnyder, Airlock

  When: Tuesday March 24, 11:15 - 11:45 CET

  Where: Amtrium 1+2

  • Watch the recording

• Maintainer Track

  10 Years of Cilium: Connecting, Securing, and Simplifying the Cloud Native Stack

  Join us as we celebrate a decade of Cilium, the de-facto standard CNI for Kubernetes and a cornerstone of cloud native networking and security. We’ll share highlights from the latest Cilium release and show how its unified, eBPF-powered stack is replacing fragmented toolchains with a seamless, secure, scalable approach across Kubernetes and beyond. You’ll also hear how open source continues to shape the service mesh ecosystem, how Tetragon is making security observable, and how contributors and end users are using Cilium to streamline operations and cement its role as the networking and security data plane for the decade ahead.

  Speakers: Bill Mulligan & Paul Arah, Isovalent at Cisco, Neha Aggarwal, Microsoft, Marcelo Mello, Celonis

  When: Tuesday March 24, 14:30 - 15:00 CET

  Where: Amtrium 1+2

• Cloud Native Theater | EnvoyCon

  The End of A Decade, the Start of An Age: Reflecting on the Past, Present, and Future of Envoy

  2026 marks the 10th anniversary of Envoy; a decade that reshaped how applications communicate, from enabling the first wave of microservices in 2016 to powering next-generation GenAI platforms in 2025. In this panel, maintainers, adopters, and contributors will revisit the milestones that shaped Envoy, discuss today’s focus areas and technical challenges, share real-world adoption stories, and explore what’s next for sustainability, innovation, and community-driven growth across the broader cloud native ecosystem. Attendees will leave with a deeper understanding of Envoy’s evolution, and what it takes to keep a major open source project reinventing itself.

  Speakers: Kateryna Nezdolii, Isovalent at Cisco, Yan Avlasov, Google, Erica Hughberg, Tetrate, Leonardo da Mata, Spotify, Rohit Agrawal, Databricks

  When: Wednesday March 25, 13:04 - 13:34 CET

  Where: Hall 1-5 | Tram Zone

• Sponsored demo

  Observability to Security: Cloud Native Networking with Cilium & Hubble Timescape

  Cloud native environments need networking that scales, performs, and delivers deep observability and security. Cilium, powered by eBPF, is a leading CNCF CNI that unifies these capabilities, and the Isovalent Enterprise Platform builds on it with enterprise-grade visibility and enforcement. In this 20-minute Sponsor Demo Theater session, we’ll walk through the platform with a focus on Hubble Timescape, showcasing historical flow analysis for security and troubleshooting in cloud native applications.

  Speaker: Raymond de Jong, Isovalent at Cisco

  When: Wednesday March 25, 14:15 - 14:35 CET

  Where: Demo Theater | Tram Zone

• Maintainer Track

  A Bug’s-Eye View: Kubernetes SIG Security Explains It All

  SIG Security helps the Kubernetes project to keep pesky bugs contained, and to spread the word when they escape! From the OWASP Top Ten and WONTFIX issues, to third-party audit results and CVEs, Kubernetes bugs have many different shapes and lifecycles.
  How do some Kubernetes bugs grow wings to become published vulnerabilities? What happens to other bugs that stay underground for years? Is that bug really a feature, or is that feature really a bug? Creep, crawl, flutter, or fly on in to learn about how it all happens.
  
  Speakers: Mahé Tardy, Isovalent at Cisco, Ian Coldwater, Independent researcher, Iain Smart, AmberWolf, Tabitha Sable & Rory McCune, Datadog

  When: Thursday March 26, 11:00 - 11:30 CET

  Where: E106-108

• Cloud Native Experience

  Navigating the Gateway API Maze: 40+ Implementations, 55+ Features, and a Path to Portability

  The Gateway API ecosystem has exploded. 40+ implementations and 55+ features, which is great, but also a recipe for analysis paralysis: which implementation fits your needs, and can you trust features to behave consistently across them? This session cuts through the confusion with new tools to discover and compare implementations by feature, and to verify whether the features you rely on are actually supported. We’ll also break down what “support” really means and how Gateway API conformance tests ensure portability, so you can make informed choices and move toward a truly vendor-agnostic future for Kubernetes networking.

  Speakers: Christine Kim, Isovalent at Cisco & Beka Modebadze, Google

  When: Thursday March 26, 13:45-14:15 CET

  Where: Hall7 | Room B