You can now use Istio as a cluster add-on. Istio is an open-source, platform-independent service mesh that provides traffic management, policy enforcement, and telemetry collection. Using Istio as a cluster add-on rather than as a standalone program simplifies configuration and ongoing maintenance.

You can more simply:

• Enable or disable Istio
• Opt into, and out of, automatic updates by Oracle.
• Select Istio add-on versions.
• Manage add-on specific customizations using approved key/value pair configuration arguments.

For more information, see Working with Istio as a Cluster Add-on.