DEVOPSdigest

VMware is introducing advances to its VMware Tanzu portfolio to enable management and operation of applications at scale and provide developers with the autonomy to build and deploy apps on any cloud.

“The changes brought on by accelerated digital transformation initiatives mean software development teams are challenged to build apps that are more reliable, secure, intelligent, and adaptive. They must deliver them faster, at scale, and across any cloud. That’s a daunting prospect no matter where an organization is in its modernization journey,” said Ajay Patel, SVP and GM, Modern Apps & Management Business Group, VMware. “With the breadth and depth of the Tanzu portfolio, VMware is uniquely positioned to meet our customers where they are now, providing the tools, training, enablement and services that will help them progress along their entire app modernization journey, across infrastructure, applications, and any cloud.”

Introduced in its first beta, Tanzu Application Platform delivers a superior developer experience for enterprises building and deploying apps and APIs on any Kubernetes. It gets software teams to production faster and sustains them over time by automating source to production pipelines and coordinating the efforts of development and operations teams.

VMware is announcing new capabilities to the Tanzu Application Platform Beta that will deliver the full end-to-end developer and operator experience including:

- Supply chain choreography: based on the open source cartographer project, allowing app operators to create pre-approved paths to production for developers that integrate Kubernetes resources and existing toolchains

- Developer tooling including IDE plugins: giving developers the opportunity to interact with the platform or its open source components easily and efficiently to execute important and frequent pre-commit development tasks

- Intrinsic security: adding features for signing, scanning, and storing images along the path to production

- Service bindings: Operators can specify how endpoints and credentials from data services are exposed to workloads in a portable and Kubernetes-native way

- Source controller: Enables app developers to create or update workloads from local source code

- Convention Service: a framework for platform operators to configure policies of deployed workloads to enable that all workloads to follow the best practices.

VMware Tanzu Community Edition is a freely available, easy to manage Kubernetes platform for learners and users. Community-supported, the open source software distribution can be installed and configured in minutes on a local workstation or cloud of choice, and automates end-to-end application delivery with a complete platform for application developers, IT Operators, and DevOps engineers.

VMware Tanzu Community Edition will enable learners and users to:

-Explore Tanzu independently with freely available software and services. Users can download no-cost, open source software that is unencumbered by usage restrictions or functional limitations; enhance learning with free access to top-notch education and training resources, and get extra help with community support that’s backed by committed and knowledgeable experts.

- Take on new challenges confidently with the same software used in Tanzu commercial editions. Proven, enterprise-class software enables end-to-end application delivery automation today, while making sure that skills, knowledge, and artifacts are fully transferable for use with Tanzu commercial editions.

- Get up and running in minutes on a local workstation or in a preferred cloud environment. Users can quickly build a complete Kubernetes-based platform customized to their needs, and run it on a local workstation, in vSphere, or in a public cloud with compact, single node and multi-cluster configurations.

Additionally, VMware is announcing a free-tier of VMware Tanzu Mission Control -- Tanzu Mission Control Starter is a multi-cloud, multi-cluster Kubernetes management solution available as a SaaS service. Users can leverage Tanzu Mission Control Starter to get global visibility and policy control over Kubernetes clusters – whether on-premises or in any public clouds. Users can combine Tanzu Mission Control Starter with Tanzu Community Edition to get started on running and managing Kubernetes-based containerized apps at no cost. And for those not currently using Tanzu but running Kubernetes with other providers (such as AKS, GKE, EKS), those existing clusters can be attached to Tanzu Mission Control Starter to centrally manage them.

As part of VMware’s dedication to providing an enterprise-class, multi-cloud Kubernetes distribution, VMware is delivering one of the most requested VMware Tanzu Kubernetes Grid features of all-time – NVIDIA GPU support for Tanzu Kubernetes Grid, supported in VMware vSphere, Amazon Web Services (AWS), and Azure environments.

VMware provides a consistent performant modern apps platform that can run everywhere. With Tanzu Kubernetes Grid 1.4, VMware is announcing NVIDIA GPU support for Tanzu Kubernetes Grid on AWS and Azure environments. Cluster API, the upstream technology used for cluster lifecycle management, supports GPU instance types for AWS and Azure. Developers can now create and manage the lifecycle of GPU-enabled clusters in Tanzu Kubernetes Grid for AWS and Azure.