[eCHO News] Episode #105: Cilium on VMware. eBPF NFS Flamegraphs

eCHO news is your bi-weekly wrap up of all things eBPF and Cilium. If you want to keep up on the latest in cloud native networking, observability, and security this is your quelle

7th April 2026

With Cilium now coming to VMware, its becoming more and more difficult to find a platform that doesn't at least support Cilium. My colleague Nico just wrote an article that lays out this exact same trend in the clouds. First, all of the hyperscalers adopted Cilium and now next generation of neoclouds and sovereign clouds are skipping the debate entirely and starting with Cilium as the default networking layer from day one.

Linux won, Kubernetes won, and now Cilium won. It’s becoming less about “choosing Cilium” and more about discovering that everything you depend on already has.

Don't believe me? If anyone can bring me a cloud or Kubernetes distribution that doesn't at least support Cilium, I'll buy them lunch the next time they visit me in Berlin. This newsletter is scheduled during my post KubeCon vacation and I have some biking to do so let’s 🐝 -gin.

The Technical

Making encrypted Java traffic observable with eBPF

22% less CPU and 20% more throughput then OTel

Detecting camera on/off events for Linux and controlling lights automatically with eBPF

"eBPF is (unsurprisingly) powerful and can be used for all sorts of weird purposes"

Mon premier contact avec Tetragon (My first contact with Tetragon)

"Tetragon est en fait un “générateur” de programmes eBPF"

Deep Observability: SR Linux Streaming Telemetry Meets Cilium ClusterMesh in a Box

Over an Layer 2 EVPN overlay

Understanding the Cilium Datapath: How Packets Actually Move Between Pods

Using four different kind clusters with four different routing configurations

ismajl-ramadani/kwatch-ebpf

eBPF-based kernel process monitor

4rivappa/nfs-flamegraph

eBPF-based NFS throughput Flamegraph

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The Ecosystem

Cilium, eBPF, and Modern Kubernetes Networking with Bill Mulligan

Podcast with Software Engineering Daily, thanks for having me!

From Hyperscalers to Neoclouds: Why Cloud Providers Are Standardizing on Cilium

Name one cloud provider that doesn't support Cilium, I dare you

KubeCon Europe 2026 Wrap Up

Hear what the Isovalent team has to say about Amsterdam

eBPF Beyond Networking

5 projects that you might want to check out beyond Cilium

The AI infrastructure crisis: Why identity controls matter now more than ever

"You can do containers, you can do VMs, you can do AI agents. Give everything identity, put it on the network and be able to do networking, observability and security around that"

KubeCon EU 2026: Kubernetes Matures – BSD, eBPF, and mTLS

and KubeCon is coming back to Berlin in 2028

Cisco Tech Stories: Rice and Shine of eBPF

Listen to the song at the end 🤣

Building the Black Box for AI: What the eBPF Foundation Report Just Revealed

Coverage of eBPF ROI

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The How To

Series 2b: Cloud Network Engineering -The Software-Defined Stadium: Stadium Broadcasts with Cilium, Multus, and IPv6

Warning: This is not a “Hello World” tutorial. If you are a beginner, stop here. I strongly suggest you get some hands-on experience with the Isovalent Labs before

Kubernetes Meets the Data Center: Cilium BGP, FRR Leaf-Spine Fabric, and Role-Based L3/L7 Policy Enforcement

and don't forget observability with Hubble

VKS (VMware Kubernetes Service) Networking, Now Powered by Cilium: Expanding Networking Possibilities

Install Cilium OSS using Standard Package

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The Video

theCUBE: Bill Mulligan, Isovalent Kubecon + CloudNativeCon EU 2026

I look way less tired than I feel :D

🐝

The Events

ACM SOSP'26 Workshop on eBPF and Kernel Extensions

September 29th in Prague, CfP open

Linux Plumbers Conference

October 5-7th in Prague, CfP open soon

🐝

The Livestreams

eCHO Episode 205: KubeCon Europe 2026 Preview

eCHO Episode 204: Kubernetes Networking & Cilium Lab Walkthrough

eCHO Episode 206: KubeCon Europe 2026 Recap

The Post of the Week

Just gave my first ever conference talk - at hashtag#ciliumcon EU in Amsterdam. Talked about our journey going from v1 to v2 load balancing built with hashtag#cilium, BGP and LB-IPAM (+ more). Finished (almost) on time, got great questions, and had some really good conversations afterwards. Turns out the scary part was the waiting, not the talking! 😊 Definitely doing this again!

As always, if you’ve seen a blog post, a tool, or anything else eBPF or Cilium related that you think the rest of the community should hear about, send them my way. You can either hit reply or join the #echo-news channel on Cilium Slack. You can also find all of the past episodes on the website.

🐝

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Written and sent by Bill Mulligan. Any feedback is welcome!

LF_KCCNC_headshot_251113_Bill_Mulligan_9686

I work for Isovalent at Cisco which is leading the eBPF-Powered Revolution in Cloud Native Networking, Observability, and Security with Cilium and Tetragon