Tag: devops

vSphere Kubernetes Services from scratch

  • VKS Introduction
  • Explain the architecture of VKS
  • LAB-1

VKS Introduction:

vSphere with Kubernetes transforms your infrastructure into a modern, cloud-ready platform. It seamlessly integrates Kubernetes with vSphere, empowering businesses to deliver next-generation applications faster. With built-in multi-tenancy, self-service capabilities, and VMware Cloud Foundation automation, you get agility, scalability, and simplicity—all in one unified solution.

VKS Architecture:

VKS uses three layers of controllers to manage the lifecycle of a VKS cluster.

It provisions clusters with the components needed to integrate with the vSphere Namespace, including the Cloud Provider Plug‑in for Supervisor connectivity. The VKS cluster also forwards persistent volume requests to the Supervisor, which handles them through VMware Cloud Native Storage (CNS).

Cluster API delivers declarative, Kubernetes-style APIs for creating, configuring, and managing clusters. Its inputs include a resource that defines the cluster, resources that describe the virtual machines composing the cluster, and resources that specify the cluster add-ons.

The Virtual Machine Service offers a declarative, Kubernetes-style API to manage VMs and related vSphere resources. It introduces the concept of a virtual machine class—an abstract, reusable hardware configuration. This service is responsible for managing the lifecycle of the control plane and worker node VMs that host a VKS cluster.

  • CPI : Cloud Provider Interface (The Cloud Provider Interface is a Kubernetes component that integrates the Kubernetes cluster with the underlying cloud—in this case, vSphere.)
  • CSI : Container Storage Interface (The Container Storage Interface allows Kubernetes to provision and manage storage.)
  • CNI : Container Network Interface (The Container Network Interface defines how networking is applied to Kubernetes pods.)
  • NCP : NSX Container Plug‑in (The NSX Container Plug‑in is the networking integration component used when NSX is the networking stack.)
  • CNS : Cloud Native Storage (VMware Cloud Native Storage is the storage control plane for Kubernetes running on vSphere.)

LAB-1 VKS With Lagacy NSX:

LAB Environment :

  • VCF 9
  • NSX 9
  • ESXi 9