VMware Tanzu Kubernetes Grid Integrated: A Year in Review

VMware
The modern application world is advancing at an unprecedented rate. However, the new possibilities these transformations make available don’t come without complexities. IT teams often find themselves under pressure to keep up with the speed of innovation. That’s why VMware provides a production-ready container platform for customers that aligns to upstream Kubernetes, VMware Tanzu Kubernetes Grid Integrated (formerly known as VMware Enterprise PKS). 

By working with VMware, customers can move at the speed their businesses demand without the headache of trying to run their operations alone. Our offerings help customers stay current with the open source community's innovations while having access to the support they need to move forward confidently.

Many changes have been made to Tanzu Kubernetes Grid Integrated edition over the past year that are designed to help customers keep up with Kubernetes advancements, move faster, and enhance security.

Kubernetes updates

The latest version, Tanzu Kubernetes Grid Integrated 1.13, bumped to Kubernetes version 1.22 and removed beta APIs in favor of stable APIs that have since evolved from the betas. 

Over time, some APIs will evolve. Beta APIs typically evolve more often than stable APIs and should therefore be checked before updates occur. The APIs listed below will not be served with v1.22 as they have been replaced by more stable API versions:

  • Beta versions of the ValidatingWebhookConfiguration and MutatingWebhookConfiguration API (the admissionregistration.k8s.io/v1beta1 API versions)
  • The beta CustomResourceDefinition API (apiextensions.k8s.io/v1beta1)
  • The beta APIService API (apiregistration.k8s.io/v1beta1)
  • The beta TokenReview API (authentication.k8s.io/v1beta1)
  • Beta API versions of SubjectAccessReview, LocalSubjectAccessReview, SelfSubjectAccessReview (API versions from authorization.k8s.io/v1beta1)
  • The beta CertificateSigningRequest API (certificates.k8s.io/v1beta1)
  • The beta Lease API (coordination.k8s.io/v1beta1)
  • All beta Ingress APIs (the extensions/v1beta1 and networking.k8s.io/v1beta1 API versions)


Containerd support

Tanzu Kubernetes Grid Integrated helps customers eliminate lengthy deployment and management processes with on-demand provisioning, scaling, patching, and updating of Kubernetes clusters.

To stay in alignment with the Kubernetes community, Containerd will be used as the default container runtime, although Docker can still be selected using the command-line interface (CLI) if needed.

Networking

Several updates have been made in regards to networking as well including support of Antrea and NSX-T enhancements.

Antrea support

With Tanzu Kubernetes Grid Integrated version 1.10 and later, customers can leverage Antrea on install or upgrade to use Kubernetes network policies. This enables enterprises to get the best of both worlds: access to the latest innovation from Antrea and world-class support from VMware. 

NSX-T enhancements

NSX-T was integrated with Tanzu Kubernetes Grid Integrated to simplify container networking and increase security. This has been enhanced so customers can now choose the policy API as an option on a fresh installation of Tanzu Kubernetes Grid Integrated. This means that users will have access to new features available only through NSX-T policy API. This feature is currently in beta.

In addition, more NSX-T and NSX Container Plug-in (NCP) configuration is possible through the network profiles. This operator command provides the benefit of being able to set configurations through the CLI, and this is persistent across lifecycle events. 

Storage enhancements

We’ve made storage operations in our customers’ container native environments easier, too. Customers were seeking a simpler and more secure way to manage Container Storage Interface (CSI), and we introduced automatic installation of the vSphere CSI driver as a BOSH process beginning with Tanzu Kubernetes Grid Integrated 1.11.

Also, as VCP will be deprecated, customers are advised to use the CSI driver. VCP-to-CSI migration is a part of Tanzu Kubernetes Grid Integrated 1.12 and is designed to help customers move forward faster.

Enhanced security

Implementing new technologies provides users with new capabilities, but it can also lead to new security vulnerabilities if not done correctly. VMware’s goal is to help customers move forward with ease and the confidence of knowing that enhancements don’t compromise core security needs.

CIS benchmarks

This year, Tanzu Kubernetes Grid Integrated continued to see improvements that help meet today’s high security standards. Meeting the Center for Internet Security (CIS) benchmarks standards is vital for Tanzu Kubernetes Grid Integrated.

In recent Tanzu Kubernetes Grid Integrated releases, a few Kubernetes-related settings have been adjusted to ensure compliance with CIS requirements:

  • Kube-apiserver with --kubelet-certificate-authority settings (v1.12)
  • Kube-apiserver with --authorization-mode argument includes Node (v1.12)
  • Kube-apiserver with proper --audit-log-maxage argument (v1.13)
  • Kube-apiserver with proper --audit-log-maxbackup argument (v1.13)
  • Kube-apiserver with proper --audit-log-maxsize argument (v1.13)


Certificate rotations

Tanzu Kubernetes Grid Integrated secures all communication between its control plane components and the Kubernetes clusters it manages, using TLS validated by certificates. The certificate rotations have been simplified in recent releases. Customers can now list and simply update certificates on a cluster-by-cluster basis through the “tkgi rotate-certificates” command. The multistep, manual process was replaced with a single CLI command to rotate NSX-T certificates (available since Tanzu Kubernetes Grid Integrated 1.10) and cluster-by-cluster certificates (available since Tanzu Kubernetes Grid Integrated 1.12).

Hardening of images

Tanzu Kubernetes Grid Integrated keeps OS images, container base images, and software library versions updated to remediate the CVEs reported by customers and in the industry. It also continues to use the latest Ubuntu Xenial Stemcell latest versions for node virtual machines. With recent releases and patch versions, the version of dockerd, containerd, runc, telegraf, nfs-utils had been bumped to the latest stable and secure versions as well.

By using Harbor as a private registry management service, customers could also leverage the built-in vulnerability scan features to discover the application images CVEs.

VMware is dedicated to supporting customers with production readiness by enhancing the user experience. Tanzu Kubernetes Grid Integrated Edition has stayed up to date with the Kubernetes community and provides customers with the support and resources they need to innovate rapidly.

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Article | June 24, 2022

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Asset Management and Genealogy allows customers and Pure Storage to jointly optimize Labor costs to run and operate storage. Customers get full transparency to manage Evergreen assets, contracts, subscriptions, and lifecycle, and get visibility into capacity, energy, and rack space usage. Customers can also view how each asset or subscription has evolved over time, including software updates, ramps, expansions, and renewals, and gain insight into upcoming lifecycle events such as EOL, upgrades, or contract expiration. Subscription Lifecycle Operations: Customers now benefit from a subscription viewer to understand when subscriptions require attention and renewal, predictive tracking of capacity utilization with actionable alerts to optimize reserve commit vs on-demand consumption, and new SLA indicators to track how well Pure Storage is meeting performance and efficiency SLAs. Customers can plan for future demand, trigger in-app workflows to request quotes, or use the new Pure1 Marketplace for a simplified subscription shopping experience. Partners can take advantage of these capabilities via APIs and early notifications of lifecycle events (EOL, renewal) to deliver seamless procurement experiences to joint customers. Policy-driven Upgrades take the guesswork out of choosing the right Purity release and simplify fleet management. They help customers strike the right balance between frequent upgrades and maintaining a secure and supported storage environment based on their organization's goals. Pure1 Mobile App enables customers to get insights and alerts even on the go as well as manage cases and get the latest information and news from Pure anywhere in the world. Guaranteed Energy Efficiency While Saving Money: With the only Paid Power and Rack Space commitment in the enterprise Storage as-a-Service market, and unique energy, density, and upgrade guarantees, Pure Storage is not only committed to providing the most sustainable storage solutions in the industry, but is also determined to make being green easier and more affordable for global customers. About Pure Storage Pure Storage uncomplicates data storage, forever. Pure delivers a cloud experience that empowers every organization to get the most from their data while reducing the complexity and expense of managing the infrastructure behind it. Pure's commitment to providing true storage as-a-service gives customers the agility to meet changing data needs at speed and scale, whether they are deploying traditional workloads, modern applications, containers, or more. Pure believes it can make a significant impact in reducing data center emissions worldwide through its environmental sustainability efforts, including designing products and solutions that enable customers to reduce their carbon and energy footprint. And with the highest Net Promoter Score in the industry, Pure's ever-expanding list of customers are among the happiest in the world.

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Backup and Disaster Recovery

In an Era of Escalating Cyber Threats, Commvault and Lenovo Simplify Enterprise Data Protection and Speed Recovery in the Hybrid Cloud

PR Newswire | October 17, 2023

Commvault®, an enterprise data protection leader for global businesses, announced new highly reliable backup and recovery solutions for enterprise organizations, powered by Lenovo technology. Paired with Lenovo's award-winning hardware systems, Commvault is delivering simplicity to IT teams with data protection and management from a single view, while giving CIOs flexibility, reliability, and blazing performance at immense scale with better TCO and faster time to value. "Innovation through collaboration has always been at the heart of Commvault. Partnering with Lenovo propels us further into a future where enterprises can safely say their data is secured, protected, and recoverable," said Alan Atkinson, Chief Partner Officer, Commvault. "This partnership stands as a testament to both companies' commitment to supporting global enterprises in navigating the multifaceted challenges posed by today's data-driven business landscape." "As we continue to operate in such a fast-paced and data-driven business environment, ensuring the safety, accessibility, and recoverability of critical business data has never been more important. It is for this exact reason that Commvault and Lenovo have come together to deliver highly reliable backup and recovery solutions for enterprise organizations," said Brian Connors, Vice President and General Manager, Software & Business Development, Lenovo. Commvault software is recognized for its unmatched depth in cloud-native integrations, supporting an array of applications, databases, and infrastructures. For the 12th consecutive year, Gartner positioned Commvault as a Leader in the Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for Enterprise Backup and Recovery Software Solutions. Commvault also ranked highest in six out of seven use cases in the 2023 Gartner® Critical Capabilities for Enterprise Backup and Recovery Software Solutions. About Commvault Commvault is a global leader in cloud data protection. Our industry-leading platform redefines the next generation of data protection as the only solution with comprehensive data protection, proactive data defense, advanced ransomware protection, and a single view across all your data. This lets you secure, defend, and recover your data, applications, and production workloads – on-premises, in the cloud, over SaaS, or spread across hybrid and multi-cloud environments. The result is early warning of attacks, active defense to reduce the impact of intrusion, and rapid, accurate recovery of your data. Simply put, Commvault is data, protected.

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Backup and Disaster Recovery

Minimize the Cost and Downtime of Disaster With Scale Computing's Business Continuity/Disaster Recovery Planning Service

PR Newswire | October 25, 2023

Scale Computing, a market leader in edge computing, virtualization, and hyperconverged solutions, today announced its Business Continuity/Disaster Recovery (BCDR) Planning Service, designed to help organizations establish a comprehensive, regulated plan for responding to unforeseen downtime. The service provides Scale Computing customers and partners with the tools, guidance, and resources to create a playbook for data backup and recovery, enabling businesses to endure a disaster scenario with minimal loss. Scale Computing also recently announced that it is a finalist for the Business Continuity/Disaster Recovery Project of the Year in the 2023 SDC Awards for its work with Austrian managed service provider GiGaNet and its long-time partner the Zillertaler Gletscherbahn group. Voting for the SDC Awards is open at sdcawards.com/vote until November 10th, 2023. Data breaches are one of the biggest and most costly contributors to downtime for businesses. In 2023, the average cost of a data breach globally reached an all-time high of $4.45 million, a 15.3% increase from 2020. Simultaneously, the average length of business disruption following a ransomware attack in the United States reached 24 days last year, up 60% from just two years prior — a significant increase when downtime costs exceed $300,000 per hour for over 90% of mid-sized and large enterprises. For more than half of those businesses, the hourly outage costs range from $1 million to over $5 million. Recovery from an outage adds additional expense from which many enterprises are unable to bounce back. "Disaster can strike at any time, and every organization needs a consistently regulated playbook for how the business will respond — from action plans to recovery plans for bringing online the mission-critical servers businesses depend on," said Jeff Ready, CEO and co-founder, Scale Computing. "Knowing what systems need to be protected, planning for the ability to recover them, and having a full action plan for recovery should be at the forefront of every IT department's agenda, at the beginning of any infrastructure addition. With Scale Computing Platform, the plan for disaster recovery starts before equipment is even put into production, so IT leaders have a plan in place from day one that they can enact to ensure their business stays up and running, with minimal loss, should disaster strike. Our Business Continuity/Disaster Recovery Planning Service enables businesses to proactively classify systems based on their importance and implement a robust action plan, ensuring that our customers' and partners' critical systems are protected, validated, tested, and ready for recovery at any time." Whether a minor data loss or a business-wide shutdown, having a well-defined business continuity strategy is crucial to minimize financial impact, ensure continuous employee productivity, meet compliance and regulatory requirements, decrease liability obligations, reduce downtime, and minimize the risk of negative exposure. Scale Computing's BCDR Planning Service includes planning, deployment, documentation creation, and disaster recovery testing, covering every aspect to keep businesses prepared and resilient. The service is offered to Scale Computing Platform customers, which brings simplicity, high availability, and scalability together to replace existing infrastructure for running virtual machines with an easy-to-manage, fully integrated platform that allows organizations to run applications regardless of hardware requirements. About Scale Computing Scale Computing is a leader in edge computing, virtualization, and hyperconverged solutions. Using patented HyperCore™ technology, Scale Computing Platform automatically identifies, mitigates, and corrects infrastructure problems in real-time, enabling applications to achieve maximum uptime, even when local IT resources and staff are scarce. Edge Computing is the fastest-growing area of IT infrastructure, and industry analysts have named Scale Computing an outperformer and leader in the space, including being named the #1 edge computing vendor by CRN. Scale Computing's products are sold by thousands of value-added resellers, integrators, and service providers worldwide.

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