Container [en] Archives - Page 2 of 2

26. September 202015. March 2024

vSphere with Kubernetes

What’s new in v7U1?

VMware will release vSphere 7 Update 1 shortly. Once update 1 is released users will be able to run Kubernetes workloads natively on vSphere. So far that was only possible for installations with VMware Cloud Foundation 4 (VCF). Beginning with update 1 there will be two kinds of Kubernetes on vSphere:

VCF with Tanzu
vSphere with Tanzu

VCF offers the full stack but has some constraints regarding your choices. For example VCF requires vSAN as storage and NSX-T networking. NSX-T offers loadbalancer functionality for the supervisor cluster and Tanzu Kubernetes Grid (TKG). Additionally it provides overlay networks for PodVMs. These are container pods that can run on the hypervisor by means of a micro-VM.

In contrast to VCF with Tanzu, vSphere with Tanzu has less constraints. There’s no requirement to utilize vSAN as storage layer and also NSX-T is optional. Networking can be done with normal distributed switches (vDS). It’s possible to use HA-proxy as loadbalancer for supervisor control plane API and TKG cluster API. The downside of this freedom comes with reduced functionality. Without NSX-T it is not possible to run PodVMs. Without PodVMs you cannot use Harbor Image Registry, which relies on PodVMs. In other words: if you want to use Harbor Image Registry together with vSphere with Tanzu, you have to deploy NSX-T.

	VCF with Tanzu	vSphere with Tanzu
NSX-T	required	optional, vDS
vSAN	required	optional
PodVMs	yes	only with NSX-T
Harbor Registry	yes	only with PodVM, NSX-T
Loadbalancer	NSX-T	HA-proxy
CNI	Calico	Antrea or Calico
Overlay NW	NSX-T	–

Tanzu Editions

In the future there will be 4 editions of vSphere with Tanzu:

Tanzu Basic – Run basic Kubernetes-clusters in vSphere. Available as license bundle together with vSphere7 EnterprisePlus.
Tanzu Standard – Same as Tanzu Basic but with multi cloud support. Addon license for vSphere7 or VCF.
Tanzu Advanced – Available later.
Tanzu Enterprise – Available later.

Links

vSphere Blog – What’s New with VMware vSphere 7 Update 1

vSphere Blog – Announcing VMware vSphere with Tanzu

Cormac Hogan – Getting started with vSphere with Tanzu

VMware Tanzu – Simplify Your Approach to Application Modernization with 4 Simple Editions for the Tanzu Portfolio

5. August 202013. August 2020

VMUG Germany bi-weekly virtual events – Session 7: VMware Cloud Native & Open Source Engagements

On August 12th 2020 VMUG Germany will host another virtual event in its bi-weekly series with Bjoern Brundert who is going to talk about VMware Cloud Native & Open Source Engagements.

Bjoern Brundert
Principal Solution Engineer, Application Platforms,
Office of the CTO, Global Field, VMware

Link to registration

In cooperation with several local German, Swiss and Austrian VMUG chapters we are hosting short and crisp bi-weekly virtual events.

One speaker, one topic, one hour.

Every second Wednesday from 17:00 to 18:00 CEST we’re presenting interesting talks about new developments, products and trends around the VMware ecosphere.

Preview to further events in this series

Wednesday, August 27th 2020 at 5 p.m. CEST – Developing modern applications with VMware Tanzu Build Portfolio (German language)

Speaker: Ulrich Hoelscher, Senior Platform Architect Modern Apps BU, VMware

1. September 201913. August 2020

Kubernetes Academy goes live

There’s a new learning portal about containers and Kubernetes. VMware has launched https://kubernetes.academy to share knowledge around the container ecosphere. It is meant for newcomers and advanced learners.

Registration is free. VMware wants to spread the word about containes and container orchestration to the community in order to gain momentum for these future technologies.

If you’re unsure which tutorial to watch, there’s a short assessment quiz that will offer you a personalized course recommendation.

20. November 201826. March 2019

vSphere Integrated Containers

VMware VIC (vSphere Integrated Containers) is an elegant way to run container workloads alongside with regular VMs in your datacenter. You’ll get best of both worlds. Developers can use container tools as usual but with added high availability and flexibility of a vSphere cluster.

I’m going to give a little primer on VMware Integrated Containers (VIC) and how to use them.

Getting started

Create distributed portgroups on a vDS that we will use for containers. We need a public dPG and a bridge dPG.
Create a VIC user to interact with vCenter. For example a standard domain user who gets permissions on vCenter to deploy and delete VMs. This user will be granted permissions to vCenter later during setup.