VMware Tanzu

Main article: IT Service Management (ITSM)

2022

VMware Tanzania Application Platform 1.2 Release

On July 15, 2022, VMware announced the release of an updated version of its Tanzu Application Platform 1.2. Based on this platform, developers and operators of the DevOps teams of Kubernetes clusters can develop various solutions for Azure Kubernetes Service, Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service, Google Kubernetes Engine, as well as directly for the infrastructure based on Tanzu Kubernetes Grid.

The main idea of ​ ​ the Tanzania Application Platform is to give developers the means to integrate existing and updated applications into the backend container infrastructure with compliance and security requirements. At the same time, the platform itself is modular - that is, developers can choose the utilities they use.

VMware TAP 1.2 innovations:

• Support for Air Gapped Installation-Enables TAP deployment in highly compliant environments such as insurance, government, and others. While this feature is available in beta mode.
• Support for updated workload types. TCP Workloads can be deployed for network applications that provide intracluster communications, such as Load Balancer Services. Queue Workloads are designed to manage queues in applications that do not provide network services to the external environment.
• Application Accelerator enhancements - Features like Fragments, Sub Path support, and Visual Studio Code integration are here.

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• Application Single Sign-On - Support for end-to-end authentication APIs that can be used by applications.
• Kaniko support - Dockerfile-based image builds are now supported as part of the Kaniko project workflows.

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• GUI improvements - a lot of relevant things have appeared here. First, improved support for Multi Cluster Topologies, where you can see all the supply chain steps for all clusters:

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• This is the visibility of the PR Based flow.
• Displayed data Security Scan Data.
• The updated customization capabilities have appeared.
• There is an updated viewer of the Pod Log viewer:

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• Updated VS Code Extension improvements have been added:

• An updated Workload Panel widget has appeared;
• Apply and Delete actions for workloads;
• Live Hover in the editor:

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• Multi-Project workspaces;
• Extension of the Tanzu Developer Tools for IntelliJ development environment - for July 2022, only Java applications are supported so far.
• Support for ECR Container Registry (Amazons Elastic Container Registry).
• The ability to use Maven Artifacts as a source for supply chain.
• Many improvements to Application Live View.
• Snyk support for application scanning.
• Community Standardization - There are many updated integrations with common development tools such as Cosign.
• A large number of usability improvements in various aspects of working with clusters and applications^[1].

Release of Tanzu Kubernetes Grid 1.5

On February 18, 2022, it became known that VMware had released an update to the Tanzu Kubernetes Grid 1.5 platform. This solution allows administrators to deploy Kubernetes environments and manage their components using Tanzu Kubernetes.

Illustration: vmgu.ru

Major changes:

• Support for Kubernetes version 1.22 and Cluster API v1beta1.
• Topology Awareness features supported by the vSphere CSI Driver 2.4 enable TKG users to optimize the performance of their workloads by considering cluster-level topology. This feature simplifies the division of clusters into racks, regions, and zones.
• Integration with Tanzania Mission Control - TKG users can now use the Mission Control console to implement cluster management in terms of access control, security and compliance, configuration configuration, and cluster control at the global level.
• Support for the Tanzu Application Platform - now developers and operators can work in a multi-cloud environment, having at their disposal the means to provide access (operators assign resources to developers) to the objects of the Tanzu Application Platform infrastructure while maintaining a secure configuration, which saves developers time.
• Support for NodePortLocal (NPL), which is executed as part of the Antrea agent. This feature optimizes integration with external load balancers, as it is now possible to check the availability of each node group separately.
• Final support Windows-containers - developers can now officially create such containers that work in the TKG environment in parallel with containers based on. Linux
• Optimized installation and upgrade functionality - now these processes are even more seamless, and the interface is cleaner and clearer.^[2]

2021

Launch and monitor applications in Kubernetes containers in multi-cloud environments

On October 19, 2021, VMware introduced an updated line of VMware Tanzu solutions that will help manage applications and allow developers to create and deploy applications in any cloud environment.

VMware Tanzu

Because of the accelerating pace and volume of digital transformation, developers need to build more robust, secure, and flexible applications and deploy them quickly in any cloud environment. This is a difficult task, no matter what stage of modernization the company is at. The variability of VMware's Tanzu solutions enables customers to be supported at different stages of the upgrade. reported Ajay Patel, Senior Vice President and CEO, Business Unit, Advanced VMware Applications

According to the company, in the beta version of the Tanzu Application Platform to support development and operation teams, the following has been updated:

• Supply chain management based on an open source mapping project enables application operations teams to create pre-consistent scenarios to bring applications into production for development teams that integrate k8s (Kubernetes) clusters and existing toolkits.
• Development tools, including IDE plugins, with which developers can interact with the platform or its open source components to perform repetitive tasks before saving changes to the program code (pre-commit).
• Built-in security that performs signature, scan, and image storage functions during software development.
• Service binding. Operators can create links between end devices and accounts data from data services and workloads. Such bindings are distinguished by the mobility and native support of Kubernetes.
• The source code controller allows application developers to create/update workloads using local source code.

Tanzu Community Edition is a Kubernetes platform for beginners and advanced users. The solution offers the following options:

• Self-study Tanzu using available software and services. Users can download open source software for free, quickly learn how to work with it thanks to open access to training resources, as well as get advice from experts.
• Solving problems using the same software that is installed in paid versions of Tanzu. Proven enterprise-class software allows you to fully automate application launches. The skills and knowledge gained when working with the free version can be completely transferred to the paid version of Tanzu.
• Faster installation on a local workstation or in a selected cloud environment. Users can quickly adapt a complete Kubernetes-based solution to their needs and run it on a local workstation, in the vSphere platform, or in the public cloud.

Tanzu Mission Control Starter is a multi-cloud Kubernetes management solution that is implemented using the SaaS subscription model. Using the Tanzu Mission Control Starter along with the Tanzu Community Edition, applications can be run in Kubernetes containers. Even if the user does not work with the Tanzu platform, but runs Kubernetes on platforms from other providers (for example, AKS, GKE, EKS), then these clusters can be connected to the Tanzu Mission Control Starter for centralized management.

VMware added GPU support for vSphere, Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Azure to the Tanzania Kubernetes Grid. This will allow companies to optimize the use of AI technologies and simplify management, accelerating the widespread use of AI in companies. In March 2021, VMware and NVIDIA announced a joint AI-enabled enterprise platform.

The Tanzu Kubernetes Grid Service solution in VMware vSphere with Tanzu supports graphics. processors This enables customers to automate the provision of containerized workloads and manage applications.

VMware offers a stable application platform that can function everywhere. Tanzu Kubernetes Grid 1.4 will provide GPU support for TKG in AWS and Azure environments. Cluster API technology for cluster lifecycle management provides GPU support for AWS Azure. Developers will be able to create and manage clusters with GPUs for AWS and Azure in the Tanzu Kubernetes Grid environment.

Release of Tanzu Kubernetes Grid 1.4

On September 14, 2021, it became known that VMware released an update to the Tanzu Kubernetes Grid 1.4 platform. which allows administrators to deploy and manage Kubernetes environments using the Tanzu Kubernetes cluster solution.

Working with packages

Now all extensions and add-ons are transferred to the packaging format and are available through the API, which allows you to improve manageability. User-managed packages (such as Contour, External DNS, FluentBit, Harbor, Multus, Prometheus, and Grafana) can be installed and updated through the VMware Tanzu Standard repository. Also, the life cycle of user-managed packages can now be managed via CLI. That is, you do not need to download the tar file of the package with yaml definitions and install from through kubectl, you can simply use the Tanzu CLI plugins to install, upgrade or update packages.

Interface

In Azure, you can now deploy to regions that do not contain availability zones, only availability sets. All regions are now available for deployment and are shown on Kickstart UI. Improvements were also made to the VPAT mechanism - for both the GUI and CLI. In addition, you can select the Azure US Government cloud as an option when creating a control cluster.

The ability to configure private clusters on Azure, both through Kickstart UI and CLI, was also added.

Networking

TKG 1.4 introduced support for single stack IPv6-only clusters on the platform vSphere and static load balancing. Improvements were also made to the interface for proxies with support for bootstrap clusters. Proxy support can now be configured in a bootstrap cluster that also supports Air Gap environments. There is also support for NSX Advanced Load Balancer as the main endpoint. provider Virtual IP for the management interface used in kubeconfig is now served by NSX Advanced Load Balancer instead of kubevip. ^[3]

Launch of the public beta of the Tanzu Application Platform

On September 6, 2021, VMware announced the launch of a public beta version of the Tanzania Application Platform. Based on this platform, developers and operators of the DevOps teams of Kubernetes clusters will be able to develop various solutions for Azure Kubernetes Service, Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service, Google Kubernetes Engine, as well as directly for the infrastructure based on Tanzu Kubernetes Grid.

At the stage of the first beta release, the platform includes the following features:

• Application templates with ready-made practices and usage rules
• Automatically assemble container images
• Runtime for container maintenance and event handling
• API Discovery and Routing Tools
• Analytics on running applications, which optimizes trableshooting

The main idea of ​ ​ the Tanzania Application Platform is to give developers the means to integrate applications into the backend of the container infrastructure with compliance and security requirements. At the same time, the platform itself is modular - that is, developers can choose the utilities they use.

With this platform, developers can create a declarative application manifest with a URL that can be shared between members of different commands. This manifesto turns into a kind of contract that developers and operating teams are working on to ensure the application is moved into the production environment and maintained there.

Here is an example of such a manifest (to serve it, you do not need to know programming languages).

Example of such a manifest

The platform supports both long-lived web applications and various event-based scripting programs. Ready-made templates and guides for integrating applications into production are provided for them, so developers do not need to shovel tons of documentation.

At the same time, the abstraction levels provided by the platform for applications are not a black box - the developer can access all wrappers from VMware, up to the original kubectl.

If any of the definitions for external components are not present on the platform, they can always be connected using special adapters that can be made for any component of thousands of tools in the Kubernetes ecosystem.

An important feature of the platform is the ability to divide application service into 2 loops: internal, where developers are only busy with the application to work, and external - where DevOps and security officers take it to the production environment and service it. For example, when a vulnerability occurs, DevOps and security commands can themselves provide application updates through VMware Tanzania Build Service. That is, the developer in this case will not be distracted from his most important task - coding.

Through the Tanzania Application Platform API portal, developers can easily access internal and external APIs. There you can also test endpoints directly in the GUI.

With Spring Cloud Gateway for Kubernetes, you can connect internal and external services with microservices. Instead of ticket-based workflows, developers now get access to an API that allows you to configure routes in JSON while linking Tanzu Application Platform services. That is, the developer does not need to leave his IDE to configure interaction between services.

Well, thanks to Cloud Native Runtimes for VMware Tanzania, developers can simply service events from other applications and infrastructure components. Using the TriggerMesh platform, you can receive external events from cloud native applications and process them.

2020: Liberica JDK availability for VMware Tanzu users

On June 29, 2020, the Russian company BellSoft, one of the representatives of the OpenJDK project, announced a partnership to support the Java execution environment with VMware, an enterprise software development company. BellSoft provides VMware with its core software product Liberica JDK for use by customers of the VMware Tanzu platform. Read more here.

2019: VMware Tanzu product and service line announcement

In September 2019, VMware introduced VMware Tanzu, a new line of products and services to change the way Kubernetes-based software is built, launched and managed.

At the time of the announcement, the Tanzu family is represented by two products:

• Project Pacific - a set of tools for transforming the VMware vSphere environment into a native platform for Kubernetes clusters;
• VMware Tanzania Mission Control is a single operating console for Kubernetes clusters that allows you to control all aspects of the application lifecycle.

Notes