VMware simplified its basic requirements for its new Kubernetes on vSphere product. While Cloud Foundation remains the foundation for the Kubernetes service, the number of required hosts is reduced.
The virtualisation and cloud specialist wants to make its recently launched Kubernetes on vSphere product more appealing. The current requirements for using the native Kubernetes solution are said to be too expensive, thus limiting the number of new customers. Therefore, the requirements are being lowered to make the solution available to more customers.
Expensive basic requiements
Kubernetes on vSphere runs on VMware’s Cloud Foundation platform. This is essentially a software-defined data center bundle. This bundle is particularly interesting for customers, like service providers, who want to develop hybrid cloud environments.
Cloud Foundation itself needs a ‘Management Domain’ of four hosts. In addition, customers of the VMware Kubernetes on vSphere solution need another three separate hosts to run the entire Kubernetes infrastructure. In total, they will need seven hosts.
For companies, this is an expensive approach to start working with containers. Most companies often do not have seven hosts to spare.
Compromise
According to a leaked white paper, ‘Announcing VMware vSphere with Kubernetes Support on the VMware Cloud Foundation Management Domain’, VMware seems to come up with a solution to lower the required hardware. Instead of the usual seven required hosts, companies can also deploy Kubernetes on vSphere with just four hosts.
These four hosts that can run Kubernetes on vSphere are all part of the Management Domain. At the very least they should be VSAN Ready Nodes. These VSAN Ready Nodes are not the cheapest storage servers. Fortunately, VMware has indicated that other storage solutions can also be used, provided they support VMware Cloud Foundation.
Ultimately, the custom baseline requirements should make it easier for customers to create Proof-of-Concepts and ultimately use VMware Kubernetes on vSphere for their application environments.
15 hours ago
