How did we go from manual 15-disk Windows installs to the seamless automation of modern cloud native environments? In this inaugural episode of I/O An Explanation, host Dan Ciruli sits down with industry legend Louis Ryan (CTO of Solo.io, co-founder of Istio, and co-inventor of gRPC) to unpack the past, present, and future of how services talk to one another.

We dive into the foundational technologies that revolutionized modern software communication. Whether you are building internal microservices or public-facing APIs, this episode provides a masterclass on balancing performance with developer convenience.

In this episode, we cover:

The "Before Times": A look back at life before high-bandwidth connectivity and the labor-intensive era of floppy disks.The REST Revolution: Why JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) and OpenAPI became the "democratizing" force for 21st-century commerce.The Rise of gRPC: Why Google built a high-performance alternative to REST.Mastering the Service Mesh: Breaking down the architectural shift that allows platform teams to manage service communication without breaking your budget.Synchronous vs. Asynchronous: Why Louis has a "cold take" on the future of async communication.About the Guest: Louis Ryan is a pioneer in service communication. As a co-founder of the Istio project and a co-inventor of gRPC, his work at Google and Solo.io has shaped the way modern cloud-native applications are built and secured.

Watch the Conversation: Prefer to see the tech in action? You can watch the full video podcast over at the Nutanix Newsroom or on YouTube. See Dan and Louis break down 20 years of cloud architecture in an engaging, face-to-face format.

📽️ Watch on Nutanix Newsroom 

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Id. d’épisode : 1000756903740

GUID : Buzzsprout-18863325

Date de publication : 24/3/2026 à 03:00:00