VMware Enterprise PKS

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Warning: VMware Enterprise PKS v1.6 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.

VMware Enterprise PKS enables operators to provision, operate, and manage enterprise-grade Kubernetes clusters using BOSH and Pivotal Ops Manager.

Overview

Enterprise 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 Enterprise 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.

On Pivotal Platform, you can run Enterprise PKS standalone or alongside Pivotal Application Service.

What Enterprise PKS Adds to Kubernetes

The following table details the features that Enterprise PKS adds to the Kubernetes platform.

Features

Enterprise 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, Enterprise PKS supports deploying and running Kubernetes clusters in air-gapped environments.

Enterprise 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 Enterprise PKS Cluster Management.

For a detailed list of components and supported versions by a particular Enterprise PKS release, see the Enterprise PKS Release Notes.

Enterprise PKS Concepts

For conceptual information about Enterprise PKS, see Enterprise PKS Concepts.

Enterprise PKS Prerequisites

For information about the resource requirements for installing Enterprise 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 Enterprise PKS on vSphere with NSX-T
• GCP Prerequisites and Resource Requirements
• AWS Prerequisites and Resource Requirements
• Azure Prerequisites and Resource Requirements

Preparing to Install Enterprise PKS

To install Enterprise PKS, you must deploy Ops Manager. You use Ops Manager to install and configure Enterprise PKS.

If you are installing Enterprise PKS to vSphere, you can also configure integration with NSX-T and Harbor.

Consult the following table for compatibility information:

For more information about compatibility and component versions, see the Enterprise PKS Release Notes.

For information about preparing your environment before installing Enterprise PKS, see the topic that corresponds to your cloud provider:

• vSphere
• vSphere with NSX-T Integration
• GCP
• AWS
• Azure

Installing Enterprise PKS

For information about installing Enterprise PKS, see Installing Enterprise PKS for your IaaS:

• vSphere
• vSphere with NSX-T Integration
• Google Cloud Platform (GCP)
• Amazon Web Services (AWS)
• Microsoft Azure (Azure)

Upgrading Enterprise PKS

For information about upgrading the Enterprise PKS tile and Enterprise PKS-deployed Kubernetes clusters, see Upgrading Enterprise PKS.

Managing Enterprise PKS

For information about configuring authentication, creating users, and managing your Enterprise PKS deployment, see Managing Enterprise PKS.

Managing Kubernetes Clusters and Workloads

For information about managing Enterprise PKS-provisioned Kubernetes clusters and deploying workloads, see Managing Kubernetes Clusters and Workloads.

Backing Up and Restoring Enterprise PKS

For information about using BOSH Backup and Restore (BBR) to back up and restore Enterprise PKS, see Backing Up and Restoring Enterprise PKS.

Enterprise PKS Security

For information about security in Enterprise PKS, see Enterprise PKS Security.

Diagnosing and Troubleshooting Enterprise PKS

For information about diagnosing and troubleshooting issues installing or using Enterprise PKS, see Diagnosing and Troubleshooting Enterprise PKS.