VMware Cloud Director Container Service Extension (CSE) 4.0 was announced by VMware last week, CSE now is delivered as an OVA file.
VMware Cloud Director Container Service Extension is a plug-in for VMware Cloud Director™ extension that helps users create and work with Kubernetes clusters.
VMware Cloud Director Container Service Extension brings Kubernetes as a service to VMware Cloud Director by deploying and managing fully functional VMware Cloud Director provisioned VMware Cloud Director clusters. By using VMware Cloud Director Container Service Extension, development teams can focus on application development, and simplifies infrastructure management.
The following diagram illustrates the architecture of VMware Cloud Director Container Service Extension 4.0, and the workflow of service providers and tenant users.
New features
- You can now perform cluster life cycle management tasks such as create, upgrade, resize, and delete Kubernetes clusters in Kubernetes Container Clusters UI plug-in of VMware Cloud Director.
- CSE Management tab: A new service provider persona workflow in the Kubernetes Container Clusters UI plug-in. This workflow guides service providers through the VMware Cloud Director Container Service Extension set up in the UI plug-in, and prepares the environment to allow tenant users to create Kubernetes clusters.
- Multi-node control plane UI for Tanzu Kubernetes Grid clusters, allowing high availability of the Kubernetes control plane.
- Heterogeneous clusters with custom sized nodes to build clusters that can accommodate memory or CPU intensive containers.
- Pre-installation of Tanzu core packages in Tanzu Kubernetes Grid clusters at creation time, that reduces additional configuration by containerized applications.
- GPU support for Tanzu Kubernetes Grid clusters to allow for AI / ML applications.
- The VMware Cloud Director Container Service Extension UI is localized to the following languages: German (de_DE), French (fr_FR), Italian (it_IT), Spanish (es_ES), Brazilian Portuguese (pt_BR), Japanese (ja_JP), Korean (ko_KR), Simplified Chinese (zh_CN), Traditional Chinese (zh_TW).
- VMware Cloud Director Container Service Extension is packaged as an appliance and uses Photon OS 3.0.
- VMware Cloud Director Container Service Extension supports HA deployment to allow high availability of cluster management tasks, such as create, upgrade, resize and delete a cluster.
- Support for the deployment of VMware RabbitMQ using VMware Data Solutions Extension..
- You can select a specific LB VIP and subnet for the control plane to manage additional network security or for business continuity.
- Cluster API for VMware Cloud Director, CAPVCD, 1.0.0 is released alongside VMware Cloud Director Container Service Extension 4.0. You can use CAPVCD 1.0.0 independently to lifecycle Kubernetes Clusters.
Prerequisites
| A virtual data center (VDC) within the organization |
| An organization (VCD) |
| NSX Advanced Load Balancer preconfigure |
| NSX Cloud preconfigure |
| Independent Shared Named Disks |
| Outbound Internet connectivity. |
| Network connectivity between the machine where VMware Cloud Director Container Service Extension is installed, and the VMware Cloud Director server. VMware Cloud Director Container Service Extension communicates with VMware Cloud Director using VMware Cloud Director public API endpoint. |
Deployment Step
- Download OVAs
VMware Cloud Director Container Service Extension
Tanzu Kubernetes Grid Templates - Create Catalogs and Upload OVAs
https://via.vmw.com/EzIGV0 - Setting up the Configuration for CSE Server
https://via.vmw.com/TJrvbR - Add VM Sizing Policies to Organization VDCs
https://via.vmw.com/iiqyvD - Create a User with CSE Admin Role
https://via.vmw.com/87BqhQ - Start CSE Server
https://via.vmw.com/QmFJqp - Download Tanzu Kubernetes Grid Templates
https://via.vmw.com/FBERLs - Sharing Tanzu Kubernetes Grid Templates
https://via.vmw.com/UzKSRu
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