Skip to content

🚀 Zero Trust Microservices Demo

A hands-on implementation of Zero Trust Architecture using Kubernetes, Istio, and Helm.

Welcome to the official documentation site for Zero Trust Microservices Demo! This site provides full guides on setup, architecture, usage, performance analysis, and security enforcement using Zero Trust principles.

🧭 Quick Overview

  • 🔧 This project simulates a microservices deployment inside a local Kubernetes cluster with Zero Trust enforcement using Istio.
  • 🎯 It demonstrates how service-to-service communication is secured via identity, mTLS, and fine-grained RBAC policies.
  • 🔗 Live demo not hosted, but reproducible fully in a local environment using Kind and task dev.

⚡ Getting Started

Visit the Quick Start page in the docs for step-by-step instructions to bootstrap your cluster, deploy services, and simulate traffic flow with and without Zero Trust.

📐 Architecture & Components

Dive into how the project is architected:

  • 🔄 Deployment is Helm-based using a modular chart (zta-demo-app)
  • 🔒 Security is handled by Istio + SPIRE for workload identity
  • 🧱 Infra is bootstrapped using Taskfile.yaml with zero manual steps

For full diagrams, workflows, and explanations, visit Architecture.

📚 Documentation Roadmap

  • Quick Start → Setup, prerequisites, and usage
  • Architecture → System overview, component breakdown
  • Features / Topics → ZTA toggling, service access flows, token authentication
  • About Me → Author info and project background

Use the sidebar for easy navigation.

🧪 Examples & Use Cases

Key examples this project demonstrates:

  • 🧪 Insecure service communication in a typical mesh setup
  • 🔐 Enforcement of Zero Trust via Istio AuthorizationPolicy and PeerAuthentication
  • 📉 Latency benchmarking before vs after ZTA activation
  • 🛡️ Realistic threat modeling: lateral movement blocked without identity

💡 Contributions & Feedback

Contributions welcome! Please open GitHub issues or PRs. License: MIT • Maintained by Sean Njela