The eBPF Documentary - Unlocking the Kernel

November 8th, 2023

Author: Shedrack Akintayo, Isovalent

Technology is constantly evolving, but few innovations signal a shift quite like eBPF. The eBPF documentary produced by Speakeasy Productions is more than a film; it is a story of a journey that began with an idea—transforming the Linux kernel into a programmable entity, which has since redefined the boundaries of what's possible in the cloud native industry and beyond.

From the exponential growth of Linux in 2011, spearheaded by a community of visionaries who built feature upon feature, to the present day where eBPF sits at the heart of cloud native innovation, the documentary captures this transformative narrative. It features pioneers of the technology like Alexei Starovoitov, Thomas Graf, Daniel Borkmann, Brendan Gregg, David Miller, and Liz Rice, who have been instrumental in eBPF's growth.

In the documentary, we learn about the early use case of eBPF in networking, tracing, and its impact on the cloud native ecosystem.

The eBPF story is one of collaboration and community. DockerCon 2017 was a pivotal moment, welcoming a tide of contributors and users who are now deploying eBPF in production environments globally. The story also highlights the formation of the eBPF Foundation which underlines the community's commitment to fostering the growth and adoption of this revolutionary technology.

We invite you to learn about the journey of eBPF from its inception to the successful merge into the Linux kernel and witness how it has grown to be deployed everywhere. The future is being written with eBPF, and this documentary is your gateway to understanding how we got here.

You can watch the eBPF documentary here