At VMware Explore 2022, VMware introduced advances to the Tanzu portfolio to increase developer productivity, deliver end-to-end security from build to production, and enable secure multi-cloud operations at scale, no matter where they are in the Kubernetes process.
At VMware Explore 2022, VMware introduced advances to the Tanzu portfolio to increase developer productivity, deliver end-to-end security from build to production, and enable secure multi-cloud operations at scale, no matter where they are in the Kubernetes process.
Updates to key components in Tanzu for Kubernetes Operations include VMware Tanzu Mission Control, VMware Aria Operations for Apps (formerly VMware Tanzu Observability by Wavefront), and VMware Tanzu Kubernetes Grid. VMware believes these updates will simplify Kubernetes delivery, management, and reliability.
VMware Tanzu Mission Control
VMware Tanzu Mission Contol is getting several new features that will extend and optimize multi-cloud, multi-cluster Kubernetes management capabilities.
The new features include:
- Preview for Lifecycle Management of Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service (EKS) clusters: VMware Tanzu Mission Control will enable direct provisioning and management of Amazon EKS clusters giving developers and operators more choices for cluster types. DevOps teams can simplify multi-cloud, multi-cluster Kubernetes management with centralized lifecycle management of Tanzu Kubernetes Grid and Amazon EKS cluster types.
- Integration with VMware Aria Automation: Tanzu Mission Control is now integrated with VMware Aria Automation, formerly known as VMware vRealize Automation Cloud, helping customers consolidate their Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) and Kubernetes platform operations. With this new integration, operators can design cloud infrastructure and underlying services on any vSphere-based or public cloud and deploy Kubernetes clusters directly via VMware Aria Automation.
- Continuous and Consistent Cluster Lifecycle Management via GitOps: This feature provides a method for managing cluster configurations with VMware Tanzu Mission Control via continuous delivery from a Git repository. Continuous delivery through VMware Tanzu Mission Control is built on Flux CD. It enables users to attach a Git repository to a cluster and sync YAML artifacts from the repository to the cluster, which can introduce consistency to the GitOps toolchain.
- Application Reliability with Cross-Cluster Backup and Restore: This feature enables application operators to move applications between any cluster, running on any cloud or on-premises data center for improved application resiliency and simplified site recovery.
VMware Aria Operations for Applications
Unified Observability Platform by VMware Aria Operations for Applications, formerly VMware Tanzu Observability, delivers simplified full-stack visibility and predictable pricing for multi-cloud environments.
The new Unified Observability platform enhances existing capabilities by adding log management to provide contextual data across traces, metrics, and logs resulting in more actionable insights and reducing MTTR (mean-time-to-resolution). The platform unifies data, insights, and actions across IT with customized and out-of-the-box dashboards for applications.
VMware Tanzu Kubernetes Grid 2.0
VMware engineered Tanzu Kubernetes Grid to simplify installation and Day 2 operations by packaging key open-source technologies and automation to get up and running quickly.
VMware Tanzu Kubernetes Grid 2.0 streamlines the management and provisioning of the Kubernetes cluster lifecycle. New capabilities add flexibility and control for cluster creation with Cluster Class, open-source API alignment, application lifecycle management capabilities, and Carvel-based tooling. It is tightly integrated with and embedded in vSphere 8, allowing customers to transform their existing compute Infrastructure into an enterprise-ready Kubernetes environment across clouds.
Tanzu Kubernetes Grid supports smaller cluster sizes of a single control node and a single worker node, available in VMware Edge Compute Stack 2.0.
VMware Tanzu Application Platform
VMware Tanzu Application Platform unlocks developer productivity by providing Application Accelerators and a pre-paved path to production with all the needed components preconfigured for developer teams to build and deploy software quickly and securely. VMware pre-announced new capabilities in the Tanzu Application Platform during VMware Explore 2022.
Updates to the Tanzu Application Platform include:
- Availability on RedHat OpenShift: Gies increased flexibility to customers for their Kubernetes platform choice. Tanzu Application Platform 1.3 will be available on RedHat OpenShift, running in vSphere and bare metal. (Expected general availability in late 2022).
- Air-gap support: Available for highly regulated and disconnected environments, the addition of air-gapped installation ensures components, upgrades, and patches are made available to the system and operate consistently and correctly in the controlled environment. (Expected general availability in late 2022).
- Secure Software Supply Chain Enhancements: Seamlessly shifts security left with three new capabilities to increase efficiency across dev and ops and accelerate the path to production:
- Expands the ecosystem of supported vulnerability scanners with a beta integration with VMware Carbon Black scanner (in addition to Snyk and Grype), giving customers a choice and leveraging their existing investments in securing their supply chain.
- A new, centralized vulnerability monitoring dashboard to aid app teams with pre-deployment security checks and secure app deployments.
- Software Bill of Materials (SBoM) support for SPDX and CycloneDX gives teams a choice in how they import and export SBoMs via the Tanzu insight CLI plug-in (Expected general availability in late 2022).
- Dynamic API specification registration: Tanzu Application Platform 1.3 automates publishing, consuming, and collaborating on APIs for application development. Integration of the Backstage API Docs plug-in into the Tanzu Application Platform GUI now auto-registers and publishes the workload specification through a secure supply chain to the API catalog with role-based access control settings. (Expected general availability in late 2022).
- Jenkins CI/CD integration: Extends the ability for users to leverage existing Jenkins pipelines in the Tanzu Application Platform with deeper Jenkins integrations. The integration will allow the Jenkins CI component to be part of an out-of-the-box supply chain to manage specific steps in the overall CI/CD pipeline and automate the triggering of Jenkins jobs from Tanzu Application Platform supply chains. (Expected general availability in late 2022).
Final Thoughts
VMware Tanzu is evolving into a feature-rich container controller for cloud applications. The Tanzu updates are great additions, and we applaud the effort to secure supply chain deployments at the beginning and end of development. Looking forward to seeing Tanzu continue integration with Redhat and Amazon ECS.
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