This post was co-authored by Patrick Daigle and Donna Lee.
We are excited to announce the general availability of VMware Tanzu Kubernetes Grid 1.3. In keeping with our tradition of following upstream development, this release introduces support for Kubernetes 1.20. Tanzu Kubernetes Grid is the Kubernetes runtime across all of the Tanzu Editions, allowing customers to run the same Kubernetes across data center, public cloud, and edge for a consistent, secure experience for all development teams.
In this post, we will walk through some of the new capabilities in Tanzu Kubernetes Grid 1.3, broken down into four themes—expanded platforms, enterprise readiness, VMware integration, and application platform robustness—that further support our customers with their Kubernetes journeys.
Expanded operating systems support
With every new Tanzu Kubernetes Grid release, we try to expand the breadth of coverage across infrastructure platforms. One of the most common requests we receive is to broaden support for new node operating systems that can be used to run Tanzu Kubernetes clusters. With Tanzu Kubernetes Grid 1.3, we will begin distributing Ubuntu 20.04-based node images for use with Tanzu Kubernetes Grid across all of the supported infrastructure providers (vSphere, AWS, and Azure). Additionally, we are adding Ubuntu 20.04 to the list of supported operating systems for the “bring your own node image” experience that was introduced in the previous release.
Enterprise readiness
Many customers, especially those running in highly regulated environments, require that all internet access go through a corporate proxy. With this release, Tanzu Kubernetes Grid introduces the ability to easily configure an HTTP or HTTPS proxy for outbound traffic. This capability applies to regular operations, such as pulling container images from a registry, as well as Tanzu Mission Control attach operations.
Another common requirement of highly regulated organizations is compiling audit logs. With Tanzu Kubernetes Grid 1.3, platform operators can enable audit logging via the Tanzu CLI, which allows them to collect Kubernetes API audit logs as well as node-level audit logs (via auditd). Audit logs can also be forwarded to supported back ends via the Fluent Bit log forwarder extension.
VMware integration
We have introduced two new points of integration with VMware solutions that enable customers to continue realizing value from their existing investments in VMware technology. The first is the integration of NSX Advanced Load Balancer Essentials, which provides vSphere users with an integrated and commercially supported Layer 4 load balancing solution for their Kubernetes workloads.
The second is that the Fluent Bit-based log forwarder extension now includes the syslog output plugin. This inclusion enables logs to be forwarded to vRealize Log Insight, which provides sophisticated log analytics.
Application platform robustness
In order to simplify the user experience when using the Tanzu editions, we have introduced the Tanzu CLI to unify operations across solutions such as Tanzu Kubernetes Grid and Tanzu Mission Control. In this release of Tanzu Kubernetes Grid, Tanzu CLI implements and replaces the commands that were performed with Tanzu Kubernetes Grid CLI in previous versions.
With the introduction of Pinniped in Tanzu Kubernetes Grid, user authentication is simplified. For example, users only need to log in to a management cluster once to access the associated workload clusters. Tanzu Kubernetes Grid now also provides OIDC and LDAP support across all of the supported infrastructure providers.
We have also included ExternalDNS as a supported add-on in this release. This will enable users to make Kubernetes resources discoverable via public DNS servers. With this new capability, they can control DNS records dynamically via Kubernetes resources and integrate with a wide array of supported DNS providers.
A plethora of features
In addition to the new features listed above, this release includes a number of enhancements and bug fixes. For full details, please refer to the release notes and see this post for a walk-through of some key features. Find more information about all three Tanzu Editions here.
