Cloud Native Storage Part 1: Storage Policy Configuration

Previous series on Tanzu setup:

  1. Tanzu Kubernetes 1.2 Part 1: Deploying a Tanzu Kubernetes Management Cluster
  2. Tanzu Kubernetes 1.2 Part 2: Deploying a Tanzu Kubernetes Guest Cluster
  3. Tanzu Kubernetes 1.2 Part 3: Authenticating Tanzu Kubernetes Guest Clusters with Kubectl

The next step here is storage. I want to configure an ability to provision persistent storage in Tanzu Kubernetes. Storage is generally managed and configured through a specification called the Container Storage Interface (CSI). CSI is a specification created to provide a consistent experience in an orchestrated container environment for storage provisioning and management. There are a ton of different storage types (SAN, NAS, DAS, SDS, Cloud, etc. etc.) from 100x that in vendors. Management and interaction with all of them is different. Many people deploying and managing containers are not experts in any of these, and do not have the time nor the interest in learning them. And if you change storage vendors do you want to have to change your entire practice in k8s for it? Probably not.

So CSI takes some proprietary storage layer and provides an API mapping:

https://github.com/container-storage-interface/spec/blob/master/spec.md

Vendors can take that and build a CSI driver that manages their storage but provides a consistent experience above it.

At Pure Storage we have our own CSI driver for instance, called Pure Service Orchestrator. Which I will get to in a later series. For now, lets get into VMware’s CSI driver. VMware’s CSI driver is part of a whole offering called Cloud Native Storage.

https://github.com/kubernetes/cloud-provider-vsphere/blob/master/docs/book/tutorials/kubernetes-on-vsphere-with-kubeadm.md

https://blogs.vmware.com/virtualblocks/2019/08/14/introducing-cloud-native-storage-for-vsphere/

This has two parts, the CSI driver which gets installed in the k8s nodes, and the CNS control plane within vSphere itself that does the selecting and provisioning of storage. This requires vSphere 6.7 U3 or later. A benefit of using TKG is that the various CNS components come pre-installed.

Continue reading “Cloud Native Storage Part 1: Storage Policy Configuration”

Tanzu Kubernetes 1.2 Part 3: Authenticating Tanzu Kubernetes Guest Clusters with Kubectl

In my previous posts, I spoke about deploying Tanzu Kubernetes Grid and then Tanzu Kubernetes Clusters. See the posts below:

  1. Tanzu Kubernetes 1.2 Part 1: Deploying a Tanzu Kubernetes Management Cluster
  2. Tanzu Kubernetes 1.2 Part 2: Deploying a Tanzu Kubernetes Guest Cluster
  3. Tanzu Kubernetes 1.2 Part 3: Authenticating Tanzu Kubernetes Guest Clusters with Kubectl

So we are up and running!

Quick shout out to Jon Owings who helped with some much needed background on a few things.

So now if you run want to see the available clusters you can run:

tkg get clusters

You can also use kubectl to see the clusters. Since one is in a non-default namespace I need to query for that namespace.

Continue reading “Tanzu Kubernetes 1.2 Part 3: Authenticating Tanzu Kubernetes Guest Clusters with Kubectl”

Tanzu Kubernetes 1.2 Part 2: Deploying a Tanzu Kubernetes Guest Cluster

So in the previous post, I wrote about deploying a Tanzu Kubernetes Grid management cluster.

VMware defines this as:

A management cluster is the first element that you deploy when you create a Tanzu Kubernetes Grid instance. The management cluster is a Kubernetes cluster that performs the role of the primary management and operational center for the Tanzu Kubernetes Grid instance. This is where Cluster API runs to create the Tanzu Kubernetes clusters in which your application workloads run, and where you configure the shared and in-cluster services that the clusters use.

https://docs.vmware.com/en/VMware-Tanzu-Kubernetes-Grid/1.2/vmware-tanzu-kubernetes-grid-12/GUID-tkg-concepts.html

In other words this is the cluster that manages them all. This is your entry point to the rest. You can deploy applications in it, but not usually the right move. Generally you want to deploy clusters that are specifically devoted to running workloads.

  1. Tanzu Kubernetes 1.2 Part 1: Deploying a Tanzu Kubernetes Management Cluster
  2. Tanzu Kubernetes 1.2 Part 2: Deploying a Tanzu Kubernetes Guest Cluster
  3. Tanzu Kubernetes 1.2 Part 3: Authenticating Tanzu Kubernetes Guest Clusters with Kubectl

These clusters are called Tanzu Kubernetes Cluster. Which VMware defines as:

After you have deployed a management cluster, you use the Tanzu Kubernetes Grid CLI to deploy CNCF conformant Kubernetes clusters and manage their lifecycle. These clusters, known as Tanzu Kubernetes clusters, are the clusters that handle your application workloads, that you manage through the management cluster. Tanzu Kubernetes clusters can run different versions of Kubernetes, depending on the needs of the applications they run. You can manage the entire lifecycle of Tanzu Kubernetes clusters by using the Tanzu Kubernetes Grid CLI. Tanzu Kubernetes clusters implement Antrea for pod-to-pod networking by default.

https://docs.vmware.com/en/VMware-Tanzu-Kubernetes-Grid/1.2/vmware-tanzu-kubernetes-grid-12/GUID-tkg-concepts.html
Continue reading “Tanzu Kubernetes 1.2 Part 2: Deploying a Tanzu Kubernetes Guest Cluster”

Error: : unable to save workload cluster kubeconfig to temporary path

I was deploying a new Tanzu Kubernetes Cluster the other day with:

tkg create cluster cody-prod --plan prod --vsphere-controlplane-endpoint-ip 10.21.202.236

Oh great, it worked without sudo!

Except not quite:

The VMs were all deployed and good, but it looks like it did not quite have the permissions to save the information to my local config. This is likely salvageable, but since it is new, just as simple to delete it and re-run with sudo

sudo tkg delete cluster cody-prod

Deletes the VMs and removes the references. The likely solution here is folder permissions, but for now just use sudo with tkg when provisioning new resources.

Tanzu Kubernetes 1.2 Part 1: Deploying a Tanzu Kubernetes Management Cluster

I wrote awhile back on how to deploy TKG on top of vSphere, but there have been some improvements, some changes, and I have personally learned more so I thought it was time to write a new one.

The process requires a few things, but first the deployment of the management cluster–and there are a few options for this. A burgeoning option is the more integrated version to vSphere, which is called Tanzu Kubernetes Grid Service. This means the supervisor cluster is tightly integrated into vSphere. This comes in two forms vSphere with Tanzu or VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) with Tanzu. The latter is the most feature rich but of course requires VCF and NSX. The former doesn’t quite have all of the options, but does not require those two, instead just vSphere and virtual distributed switches.

The third option is to deploy the management cluster directly. This has the least requirements, but has the least direct integration into vSphere. This is what I will focus on today. I will follow up with the other options. This choice is generally just called Tanzu Kubernetes Grid.

https://docs.vmware.com/en/VMware-Tanzu-Kubernetes-Grid/1.2/vmware-tanzu-kubernetes-grid-12/GUID-index.html

  1. Tanzu Kubernetes 1.2 Part 1: Deploying a Tanzu Kubernetes Management Cluster
  2. Tanzu Kubernetes 1.2 Part 2: Deploying a Tanzu Kubernetes Guest Cluster
  3. Tanzu Kubernetes 1.2 Part 3: Authenticating Tanzu Kubernetes Guest Clusters with Kubectl
Continue reading “Tanzu Kubernetes 1.2 Part 1: Deploying a Tanzu Kubernetes Management Cluster”

Preparing for a vVol VMware Cloud Foundation Workload Domain with PowerShell

The recent release of VMware Cloud Foundation (version 4.1) added support for Virtual Volumes as a principle storage option via either iSCSI or Fibre Channel. See some more information on that here:

vVols, please report to the Principal’s Office! VCF 4.1 and vVols!

When you deploy a new workload domain in VCF, a new vCenter gets deployed and along with that a new cluster with hosts, and all of the various related pieces (NSX etc.). Before you can deploy a WD, you must have of course hosts–and ESXi needs to be installed on these hosts. Depending on what storage option you choose, there are a few requirements for these hosts besides just having ESXi.

Continue reading “Preparing for a vVol VMware Cloud Foundation Workload Domain with PowerShell”

vVols, please report to the Principal’s Office! VCF 4.1 and vVols!

Note: This is another guest blog by Kyle Grossmiller. Kyle is a Sr. Solutions Architect at Pure and works with Cody on all things VMware.

In VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) version 4.1, vVols have taken center stage as a Principal Storage type available for Workload Domain deployments.  This inclusion in one of VMware’s premier products reinforces the continued emphasis on vVols and all the benefits that they enable from VMware.  vVols with iSCSI is particularly exciting to us as this is the first instance of the iSCSI protocol being supported as a Principal Storage type within VCF.  We at Pure Storage are honored to have had a little bit of influence over this added functionality by serving as a design partner for this new feature and we are confident you are going to like what you see!

Someone who is using VMFS datastore with VCF today might ask themselves ‘why vVols’? This is a great question deserving of an expansive answer beyond this blog post.  Fundamentally, though, using vVols enables you to fully use the FlashArray in the way it was intended.  By leverage VASA (VMware API for Storage Awareness) you gain far more granular control and monitoring abilities over your individual VMs.  Native FlashArray capabilities such as snapshots and replication are directly executed against the underlying array via policy-driven constructs.  Further information on these and other benefits with vVols are available here.

Using vVols as Principal Storage is a lot like the methods VCF customers are used to for pre-existing Principal Storage options.  Image an ESXi host, apply a few prerequisites to it, commission it to SDDC manager and create Workload Domains.  Deploying Workload Domains with VMware Cloud Foundation automates and takes all the guesswork out of deploying vCenter and NSX-T for modern use cases such as Kubernetes via Workload Management

Stepping into some specifics for a moment; here’s the process on how to use FlashArray iSCSI and vVols for VCF Workload Domains:

The most fundamental update to SDDC Manager to allow vVols is the capability to register a VASA Provider.  In the below screenshot and following detailed information, we show an example of how you can add a FlashArray using another block protocol:  Fibre Channel:

  1. Provide a descriptive name for the VASA provider.  It is recommended to use the FlashArray name and append it with -ct0 or -ct1 to denote which controller the entry is associated with.
  2. Provide the URL for the VASA provider.  This cannot be the management VIP of the array.  Instead this field needs to be the management IP address associated with one of the controllers.  The URL also is required to have the VASA port and version.xml appended to it.  The format for the URL is:  https://<IP of FlashArrayController>:8084/version.xml
  3. Give a FlashArray user name with the arrayadmin role.  The procedure for how to create such a user can be found here.  While the pureuser account can be used, we recommend creating and using a separate FlashArray user for VASA operations.
  4. Provide the password for the FlashArray username to be used.
  5. Container Name must be Vvol container.  Note that this value is case-sensitive.
  6. For Container Type, select FC from the drop-down menu to use Fibre Channel.
  7. Once all entries are completed, click Save.

Obviously, there’s a lot more to share here so we will be expanding on this substantially in the very near future on our VMware Platform Guide site.

Rounding out this post, I’m happy to show a demo video of just how easy it is to deploy a FC+vVols-based Workload Domain with VMware Cloud Foundation.