Executive Summary
This whitepaper presents the implementation of VMware Tanzu Kubernetes Grid (TKG) on VMware vSphere 8, focused on enabling a modern, scalable, and highly available container management environment. The project aimed to accelerate software delivery, improve development agility, and integrate containerized workloads into an enterprise-grade hybrid infrastructure. The document summarizes the architecture, deployment methodology, key outcomes, and lessons learned to guide future VMware practitioners in similar implementations.
Technical Context
The deployment was conducted in a virtualized on-premises environment running VMware vSphere 8.0 Update 3. Two ESXi hosts were configured in a high-availability cluster, with distributed networking and shared storage. VMware Tanzu Kubernetes Grid version 2.5.2 was deployed to provide Kubernetes orchestration, while HAProxy was implemented as the external load balancer for workload traffic management.
Implementation Overview
The project followed a structured approach consisting of three main stages: infrastructure preparation, HAProxy configuration, and Tanzu Kubernetes Grid deployment.
1. **Infrastructure Preparation** – ESXi hosts were installed, network segmentation was defined, datastores were provisioned, and DRS/HA were enabled to ensure resource optimization and fault tolerance.
2. **HAProxy Configuration** – HAProxy v0.2.0 was deployed directly from the vCenter Content Library. The configuration included separate management and workload interfaces, IP allocation ranges, and connectivity validation between HAProxy and the Tanzu nodes.
3. **Tanzu Kubernetes Grid Installation** – TKG 2.5.2 was installed via the vSphere Workload Management wizard. Integration with HAProxy was configured, static networking parameters were defined, and the control plane was provisioned with sufficient resources to support testing and scaling scenarios.
Key Results
The environment was validated through end-to-end testing using kubectl and tkgctl. Cluster provisioning, node registration, and service exposure through HAProxy were successful. Load and connectivity tests confirmed consistent performance, stability, and high availability across workloads.
Key outcomes included: - Successful deployment of Supervisor and TanzuKubernetesCluster instances. - Verified integration between vSphere, Tanzu, and HAProxy. - Scalable and resilient container platform aligned with VMware architecture best practices.
Lessons Learned
Throughout the deployment process, several operational insights were gained:
