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91_Bare_Metal_VMware_vSphere_Tanzu_Kubernetes_VMs

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DEPLOYMENT 91 — Bare Metal → VMware vSphere + Tanzu → Kubernetes + VMs

Deployment Stack Overlay

┌──────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│             Workload (App/Process)             │
├──────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│                Kubernetes + VMs                │
├──────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│             VMware vSphere + Tanzu             │
├──────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│                   Bare Metal                   │
└──────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

Detailed System Infrastructure

┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│              WORKLOADS (VMware unified platform)                 │
│  ┌──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐   │
│  │  Traditional VMs (Windows, Linux — vSphere managed)      │   │
│  │  Kubernetes clusters (Tanzu managed K8s)                 │   │
│  │  Containers (Tanzu Application Platform — Cloud Foundry) │   │
│  └──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘   │
└────────────────────────────┬────────────────────────────────────┘
                             │
┌────────────────────────────▼────────────────────────────────────┐
│              VMWARE TANZU + vSPHERE MANAGEMENT                  │
│  ┌──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐   │
│  │  vCenter Server (VM + Tanzu cluster management)          │   │
│  │  ┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐  │   │
│  │  │  Tanzu Kubernetes Grid (TKG)                       │  │   │
│  │  │  → provisions K8s clusters on vSphere VMs          │  │   │
│  │  │  vSphere with Tanzu (Supervisor)                   │  │   │
│  │  │  → K8s API directly on vSphere (no separate TKG)  │  │   │
│  │  │  Tanzu Application Platform (TAP)                  │  │   │
│  │  │  → developer self-service, supply chain security   │  │   │
│  │  └────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘  │   │
│  │  vSphere features: DRS │ HA │ vMotion │ vSAN │ NSX-T     │   │
│  └──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘   │
└────────────────────────────┬────────────────────────────────────┘
                             │
┌────────────────────────────▼────────────────────────────────────┐
│              ESXI HOSTS (hypervisor nodes)                      │
│  ┌──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐   │
│  │  Guest VMs (Windows/Linux workloads)                     │   │
│  │  Tanzu K8s cluster node VMs (Ubuntu-based)               │   │
│  │  VMkernel (ESXi hypervisor kernel)                       │   │
│  └──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘   │
│  ┌──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐   │
│  │  vSAN: local NVMe pooled across ESXi hosts               │   │
│  │  NSX-T: software-defined networking (micro-segmentation) │   │
│  └──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘   │
└────────────────────────────┬────────────────────────────────────┘
                             │
┌────────────────────────────▼────────────────────────────────────┐
│                       BARE METAL                                │
│  VMware HCL-certified hardware                                  │
│  Intel Xeon / AMD EPYC │ RAM 512GB+ │ NVMe (vSAN) │ 25GbE NIC │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

Technical Implementation Details

  • Networking: Uses CNI plugins (Calico/Cilium) for pod-to-pod communication.
  • Storage: Persistent Volumes (PV) managed via CSI drivers.
  • Isolation: Hardware-assisted virtualization (VT-x/AMD-V).
  • Storage: Virtual disks (qcow2/vmdk) on shared or local storage.
  • Management: Orchestrated via native CLI or high-level API controllers.

Use Case

Large enterprises standardized on VMware wanting to modernize to Kubernetes while retaining existing VMware investment. Bridges traditional VM world to cloud-native.

Pros

  • Unified VMware management for VMs + K8s
  • Mature HA, DRS, vMotion for all workloads
  • NSX-T micro-segmentation for both VMs and K8s
  • vSAN for integrated storage

Cons

  • Dramatically increased cost post-Broadcom 2024 acquisition
  • Very complex licensing tiers
  • Driving customers away toward Nutanix, Proxmox, OpenShift
  • Deep VMware lock-in
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