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VMware Adds Tanzu to vSphere for Quick Kubernetes Onramp

• By David Ramel
• 09/15/2020

Among several new product updates announced by VMware this week is VMware vSphere 7 Update 1, which further integrates its mainstay virtualization platform with Tanzu, the company's Kubernetes offering.

The company says adding the relatively new and "modern" Tanzu with the more traditional vSphere -- boasting some 70 million installations -- is "the fastest way to get started with Kubernetes."

The update is aimed at enterprises who want a simplified way to modernize their cloud/container/virtualization implementations, providing an option below the more robust VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF), a hybrid cloud platform for managing virtual machines (VMs) and orchestrating containers. VCF includes vSphere for compute virtualization, along with components for network virtualization (NSX-T) and storage virtualization (vSAN). The company says VCF is the best way to run Kubernetes at scale.

"But there are many that are not quite ready for the full stack yet, or they've made existing investments in other components that they want to leverage, and so we're also introducing vSphere with Tanzu," said VMware's Sheldon D'Paiva in an introductory video.

VMware has previously made steps to integrate vSphere with Kubernetes, such as the March introduction of vSphere 7, which debuted with Kubernetes support, providing a common platform for running both Kubernetes/containerized workloads and virtual machines (VMs) at the same time.

That update built on Project Pacific, which was announced last year as a tech preview and described as "a ground-breaking rethinking of vSphere that deeply integrated Kubernetes with the platform."

This week's vSphere with Tanzu (part of VMware vSphere 7 Update 1) and other updates were described as the next phase of Project Pacific.

Those other updates include VMware vSAN 7 Update 1 and VMware Cloud Foundation 4.1.

A blog post described vSphere with Tanzu as a developer-ready infrastructure delivering:

• Kubernetes infrastructure in an hour:
  • Configure an enterprise-grade Kubernetes infrastructure leveraging existing networking and storage in as little as an hour
  • Self-service provisioning of Tanzu Kubernetes Grid clusters in just a few minutes
• A seamless developer experience: IT admins can provide developers with self-service access to Kubernetes namespaces and clusters, allowing developers to integrate vSphere with Tanzu with their development process and CI/CD pipelines.
• Kubernetes can be managed through the familiar environment and interface of vSphere. This allows vSphere admins to leverage their existing tooling and skillsets to manage Kubernetes-based applications. Moreover, it provides vSphere admins with the ability to easily grow their skillset in and around the Kubernetes ecosystem.

All of the updates mentioned above, along with VMware Tanzu Basic and Tanzu Standard editions, and VMware Skyline support for VMware Cloud Foundation, are expected to be available in VMware's Q3 FY21, which ends Oct. 30, 2020.

Another new offering -- VMware NSX Advanced Load Balancer Essentials -- is expected to be in beta in Q3 FY21, while VMware Tanzu Advanced and Enterprise editions will be available at a later date, the company said.