Document Submariner's role in the ecosystem

Signed-off-by: nyechiel <nyechiel@redhat.com>

src/content/community/_index.en.md

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 * [Getting Help](getting-help)
 * [Releases](releases)
 * [Roadmap](roadmap)
+* [Role in the Ecosystem](role-ecosystem)

src/content/community/role-ecosystem/_index.en.md

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+title = "Role in the Ecosystem"
+weight = 50
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+
+As cloud-native applications continue to evolve, the open-source ecosystem for multi-cluster networking has changed significantly in recent
+years. There are several community projects and emerging technologies addressing various challenges of connecting, securing, and managing
+communication between Kubernetes clusters across different environments. Some notable examples include
+[Submariner](https://submariner.io/), [Skupper](https://skupper.io/), [Istio](https://istio.io/),
+[Calico](https://www.tigera.io/project-calico/community/), and [Cilium](https://cilium.io/). These solutions play a critical role in
+enabling scalable and secure multi-cluster deployments.
+
+This page highlights Submariner’s role within the ecosystem and touches on how it compares to some of these other projects.
+
+## Submariner
+
+**Networking Focus**: Submariner is primarily focused on providing network connectivity at layer 3. It establishes tunnels between clusters
+to facilitate direct communication between pods and services. Submariner operates at layer 3 of the OSI model, which means it can support
+communication for any type of application data or protocol. However, setting up Submariner does require some administrative overhead,
+particularly in configuring firewall rules in the underlying infrastructure.
+
+**Service Discovery**: Submariner provides an implementation of the Multicluster Services API (MCS API), an initiative within the Kubernetes
+ecosystem aimed at standardizing the management of services across multiple Kubernetes clusters, and follows its model and core
+“namespace seamness” principal: Kubernetes namespaces behave consistently and seamlessly across interconnected clusters.
+
+**Use Cases**: It is well-suited for scenarios where you need to create a unified permanent network across geographically distributed
+clusters, ensuring seamless pod-to-pod communication and service discovery.
+
+**Connectivity Domain**: Submariner primarily focuses on interconnecting Kubernetes clusters. However, Submariner also provides an
+experimental feature that allows access to external applications or endpoints that exist outside of the cluster, in non-Kubernetes
+environments. It's important to note that while this [experimental feature](../../getting-started/quickstart/external/) exists, it might not
+be as mature or stable as Submariner's core functionalities. Users interested in leveraging Submariner for accessing external applications
+should consider testing and evaluating this feature in their specific use cases.
+
+**Integration**: Submariner integrates with various networking solutions and can work alongside existing CNI
+(Container Network Interface) plug-ins like Calico, Flannel, etc., ensuring compatibility with different Kubernetes environments.
+
+**Security**: Provides secure communication between clusters using IPsec tunnels by default, which encrypt traffic between clusters.
+
+## Comparison Summary
+
+- **Submariner** focuses on establishing a unified network between Kubernetes clusters, ensuring secure pod-to-pod communication and service
+discovery.
+
+- **Skupper** leverages messaging functionalities to facilitate flexible communication across end-points. While Skupper provides support for
+linking namespaces across different Kubernetes clusters, it can also be used to support non-Kubernetes environments, including for example
+bare-metal, VMs or services running as Docker or Podman containers. It’s important to note that Skupper utilizes a layer 7-based mechanism
+for establishing connectivity. This approach supports selected application protocols today, including HTTP/1.1, HTTP/2, gRPC, and TCP
+communication.
+
+- **Istio** provides a robust service mesh with advanced traffic management, policy and security features primarily designed for
+intra-cluster communication but can be extended to manage communication across clusters with additional setup.
+
+- Projects like **Calico** and **Cilium**, which integrate with Kubernetes using the Container Network Interface (CNI), require that the
+same CNI plug-in is configured consistently across all interconnected clusters for multi-cluster connectivity solutions to work effectively.
+
+Choosing between these solutions would depend on your specific use case requirements regarding network connectivity, service discovery,
+security needs, and integration preferences within a multi-cluster environment.