VMware Expands Tanzu for Kubernetes Portfolio

At the VMware Explore conference this week, VMware announced it is adding a range of capabilities to its Tanzu for Kubernetes portfolio, including the ability to deploy the Tanzu Application Platform (TAP) on top of the Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform.

VMware TAP 1.3 also provides support for a dashboard for tracking security vulnerabilities along with support for the VMware Carbon Black scanner in beta to advance adoption of DevSecOps best practices. It also supports the SPDX format for creating software bills of materials (SBOMs) alongside existing support for the CycloneDX format, as well as support for the Backstage application programming interface (API) Docs plugin to auto-register and publish the workload specification to an API catalog with role-based access controls.

In addition, TAP 1.3 adds support for air-gapped installation for highly regulated and disconnected IT environments.

At the same time, the company announced that the VMware Tanzu for Kubernetes Operations platform has been updated to add support for the open source Flux continuous delivery platform as part of an effort to enable GitOps best practices along with deeper integration with Jenkins continuous integration (CI) pipelines.

Edward Hieatt, head of services and support for VMware Tanzu in VMware’s Modern Application Platforms business unit, says that VMware is trying to allow application development teams to employ their application development and deployment methodology of choice to build microservices-based applications that can be deployed on any Kubernetes cluster.

VMware is pursuing a two-pronged approach to Kubernetes that enables IT teams to employ an application development environment that traces its lineage to the Spring framework originally created by Pivotal. VMware acquired Pivotal in 2019. The goal is to provide a less opinionated framework for building Kubernetes applications that still provides guardrails to prevent developers from making mistakes, says Hieatt.

At the same time, VMware provides a management framework for any distribution of Kubernetes in the form of a VMware Tanzu for Kubernetes Operations platform that consists of multiple modules. The latest version of VMware Tanzu Mission Control adds a preview of support for Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service (EKS) clusters along with integration with VMware Aria Automation, formerly known as VMware vRealize Automation Cloud, and VMware Aria Operations for Applications, formerly VMware Tanzu Observability.

VMware Tanzu Mission Control also now enables cross-cluster backup and restore of Kubernetes clusters.

Finally, a VMware Tanzu Kubernetes Grid 2.0 module allows Kubernetes to be deployed on smaller clusters using a single control node and a single worker node via VMware Edge Compute Stack 2.0. There are also new capabilities to provide more flexibility and control for cluster creation using a Cluster Class capability along with alignment with other open source application programming interfaces (APIs), support for Carvel-based tooling, support for vSphere 8 and additional application life cycle management tools.

Hieatt noted that while TAP and VMware Tanzu for Kubernetes Operations platform are designed to be seamlessly integrated, IT teams are not obligated to adopt both. Some organizations may prefer to adopt TAP alongside another management framework or, conversely, employ VMware Tanzu for Kubernetes Operations without adopting TAP.

Regardless of approach, however, more organizations than ever are relying on VMware services teams to help them navigate a massive transition to a Kubernetes environment that changes every aspect of both application development and IT operations.

Mike Vizard

Mike Vizard is a seasoned IT journalist with over 25 years of experience. He also contributed to IT Business Edge, Channel Insider, Baseline and a variety of other IT titles. Previously, Vizard was the editorial director for Ziff-Davis Enterprise as well as Editor-in-Chief for CRN and InfoWorld.

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