Pivotal Container Service (PKS)
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Warning: Pivotal Container Service (PKS)
v1.3 is no longer supported because it has reached the End
of General Support (EOGS) phase as defined by the
Support Lifecycle Policy.
To stay up to date with the latest software and security updates, upgrade to a supported version.
Pivotal Container Service (PKS) enables operators to provision, operate, and manage enterprise-grade Kubernetes clusters using BOSH and Pivotal Ops Manager.
Overview
PKS uses the On-Demand Broker to deploy Cloud Foundry Container Runtime, a BOSH release that offers a uniform way to instantiate, deploy, and manage highly available Kubernetes clusters on a cloud platform using BOSH.
After operators install the PKS tile on the Ops Manager Installation Dashboard, developers can provision Kubernetes clusters using the PKS Command Line Interface (PKS CLI), and run container-based workloads on the clusters with the Kubernetes CLI, kubectl.
PKS is available as part of Pivotal Cloud Foundry or as a stand-alone product.
What PKS Adds to Kubernetes
The following table details the features that PKS adds to the Kubernetes platform.
| Feature | Included in K8s | Included in PKS |
|---|---|---|
| Single tenant ingress | ✓ | ✓ |
| Secure multi-tenant ingress | ✓ | |
| Stateful sets of pods | ✓ | ✓ |
| Multi-container pods | ✓ | ✓ |
| Rolling upgrades to pods | ✓ | ✓ |
| Rolling upgrades to cluster infrastructure | ✓ | |
| Pod scaling and high availability | ✓ | ✓ |
| Cluster provisioning and scaling | ✓ | |
| Monitoring and recovery of cluster VMs and processes | ✓ | |
| Persistent disks | ✓ | ✓ |
| Secure container registry | ✓ | |
| Embedded, hardened operating system | ✓ |
Features
PKS has the following features:
Kubernetes compatibility: Constant compatibility with current stable release of Kubernetes
Production-ready: Highly available from applications to infrastructure, with no single points of failure
BOSH advantages: Built-in health checks, scaling, auto-healing and rolling upgrades
Fully automated operations: Fully automated deploy, scale, patch, and upgrade experience
Multi-cloud: Consistent operational experience across multiple clouds
GCP APIs access: The Google Cloud Platform (GCP) Service Broker gives applications access to the Google Cloud APIs, and Google Container Engine (GKE) consistency enables the transfer of workloads from or to GCP
On vSphere, PKS supports deploying and running Kubernetes clusters in air-gapped environments.
PKS Components
The PKS control plane contains the following components:
- An On-Demand Broker that deploys Cloud Foundry Container Runtime (CFCR), an open-source project that provides a solution for deploying and managing Kubernetes clusters using BOSH.
- A Service Adapter
- The PKS API
For more information about the PKS control plane, see PKS Cluster Management.
For a detailed list of components and supported versions by a particular PKS release, see the PKS Release Notes.
PKS Concepts
For conceptual information about PKS, see PKS Concepts.
PKS Prerequisites
For information about the resource requirements for installing PKS, see the topic that corresponds to your cloud provider:
- vSphere Prerequisites and Resource Requirements
- vSphere with NSX-T Version Requirements and Hardware Requirements for PKS on vSphere with NSX-T
- GCP Prerequisites and Resource Requirements
- AWS Prerequisites and Resource Requirements
- Azure Prerequisites and Resource Requirements
Preparing to Install PKS
To install PKS, you must deploy one of the following versions of Ops Manager:
- Ops Manager v2.4.3 and earlier in the v2.4 version line
- Ops Manager v2.3.9 and earlier in the v2.3 version line
You use Ops Manager to install and configure PKS.
If you are installing PKS to vSphere, you can also configure integration with NSX-T and Harbor.
Consult the following table for compatibility information:
| IaaS | Ops Manager v2.3.1+ or v2.4.x | NSX-T | Harbor |
|---|---|---|---|
| vSphere | Required | Available | Available |
| GCP | Required | Not Available | Available |
| AWS | Required | Not Available | Available |
| Azure | Ops Manager v2.4.0 through v2.4.3 or v2.3.0 through v2.3.9 is required for installing PKS on Azure. | Not Available | Available |
For more information about compatibility and component versions, see the PKS Release Notes.
For information about preparing your environment before installing PKS, see the topic that corresponds to your cloud provider:
Installing PKS
For information about installing PKS, see Installing PKS for your IaaS:
- vSphere
- vSphere with NSX-T Integration
- Google Cloud Platform (GCP)
- Amazon Web Services (AWS)
- Microsoft Azure (Azure)
Upgrading PKS
For information about upgrading the PKS tile and PKS-deployed Kubernetes clusters, see Upgrading PKS Overview.
Managing PKS
For information about configuring authentication, creating users, and managing your PKS deployment, see Managing PKS.
Using PKS
For information about using the PKS CLI to create and manage Kubernetes clusters, see Using PKS.
Backing Up and Restoring PKS
For information about using BOSH Backup and Restore (BBR) to back up and restore PKS, see Backing Up and Restoring PKS.
PKS Security
For information about security in PKS, see PKS Security.
Diagnosing and Troubleshooting PKS
For information about diagnosing and troubleshooting issues installing or using PKS, see Diagnosing and Troubleshooting PKS.
Please send any feedback you have to pks-feedback@pivotal.io.