Tanzu Kubernetes Grid (TKG) is part of VMware Tanzu portfolio and it’s 1.4 version is out now. As per release note, it was released on 09th Sep 2021.
In this post, I will try to point out few key features that you may be interested in.
#1 : Tanzu Kubernetes releases are no longer tied to Tanzu Kubernetes Grid releases
Before TKG1.4, when we deploy TKG Instance, Management and workload clusters were using same Kubernetes version. In TKG1.4, now we can deploy different Kubernetes version.
Here you can find more detail about how to achieve this. LINK
#2 : Extensions Replaced by Packages
Before TKG 1.4, we had something known as TKG extensions. Extensions were nothing but the set of different tools to make TKG cluster managed better. e.g. Prometheus, Grafana for monitoring purpose, Harbor for registry etc.
In this release, Extensions are replaced by Packages and the way i see it is, it will be easier to deploy the different components as package using tanzu cli.
#3 : TKG Clusters in a vSphere environment can be deployed in an IPV6 networking environment
This is an enhancement in TKG 1.4 to support IPV6 networking.
#4 : Support for multi-tenancy (One of my favorite feature)
I really liked this one because this gives you an ability to run TKG workload clusters on different vSphere environment. That means, this is true multitenancy where different client can have their own vSphere environment where we can deploy workload clusters and management cluster can be in provider vSphere environment.
This is not only supported on vSphere environment, but also multitenancy is now supported on an Azure cloud where workload clusters can be deployed across different subscriptions.
Here you can read more: https://docs.vmware.com/en/VMware-Tanzu-Kubernetes-Grid/1.4/vmware-tanzu-kubernetes-grid-14/GUID-tanzu-k8s-clusters-vsphere.html#clusters-on-different-vsphere-accounts-6
#5 : Management Cluster are now created with 3 worker node by default
I was really thinking earlier that why VMware just give one worker node as default and looks like they got the message and now three worker nodes are deployed by default as part of deployment.
Here are some more detail that you may be interested in
Version Support Matrix
| Tanzu Kubernetes Grid Version | Provided Kubernetes Versions | Supported in v1.4? |
|---|---|---|
| 1.4.0 | 1.21.2 1.20.8 1.19.12 | YES YES YES |
| 1.3.1 | 1.20.5 1.19.9 1.18.17 | YES YES NO |
| 1.3.0 | 1.20.4 1.19.8 1.18.16 1.17.16 | YES YES NO NO |
| 1.2.1 | 1.19.3 1.18.10 1.17.13 | YES NO NO |
| 1.2 | 1.19.1 1.18.8 1.17.11 | YES NO NO |
| 1.1.3 | 1.18.6 1.17.9 | NO NO |
| 1.1.2 | 1.18.3 1.17.6 | NO NO |
| 1.1.0 | 1.18.2 | NO |
| 1.0.0 | 1.17.3 | NO |
Different Product Versions
Component | VSphere | AWS | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Infrastructure platform | vSphere 6.7U3 and later, vSphere 7, VMware Cloud on AWS****, Azure VMware Solution | Native AWS* | Native Azure* |
| Cluster creation and management | Core Cluster API (v0.3.22), Cluster API Provider vSphere (v0.7.10) | Core Cluster API (v0.3.22), Cluster API Provider AWS (v0.6.6) | Core Cluster API (v0.3.22), Cluster API Provider Azure (v0.4.15) |
| Kubernetes node OS distributed with TKG | Photon OS 3, Ubuntu 20.04 | Amazon Linux 2, Ubuntu 20.04 | Ubuntu 18.04, Ubuntu 20.04 |
| Bring your own image | Photon OS 3, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7, Ubuntu 18.04, Ubuntu 20.04 | Amazon Linux 2, Ubuntu 18.04, Ubuntu 20.04 | Ubuntu 18.04, Ubuntu 20.04 |
| Container runtime | Containerd (v1.4.6) + | Containerd (v1.4.6) + | Containerd (v1.4.6) + |
| Container networking | Antrea (v0.13.3), Calico (v3.11.3) | Antrea (v0.13.3), Calico (v3.11.3) | Antrea (v0.13.3), Calico (v3.11.3) |
| Container registry | Harbor (v2.2.3) | Harbor (v2.2.3) | Harbor (v2.2.3) |
| Ingress | NSX Advanced Load Balancer Essentials (v20.1.3)**, Contour (v1.17.1) | Contour (v1.17.1) | Contour (v1.17.1) |
| Storage | vSphere Container Storage Interface (v2.3.0***) and vSphere Cloud Native Storage | In-tree cloud providers only | In-tree cloud providers only |
| Authentication | OIDC via Pinniped (v0.4.4), LDAP via Pinniped (v0.4.4) and Dex | OIDC via Pinniped (v0.4.4), LDAP via Pinniped (v0.4.4) and Dex | OIDC via Pinniped (v0.4.1), LDAP via Pinniped (v0.4.1) and Dex |
| Observability | Fluent Bit (v1.7.5), Prometheus (v2.27.0), Grafana (v7.5.7) | Fluent Bit (v1.7.5), Prometheus (v2.27.0), Grafana (v7.5.7) | Fluent Bit (v1.7.5), Prometheus (v2.27.0), Grafana (v7.5.7) |
| Backup and migration | Velero (v1.6.2) | Velero (v1.6.2) | Velero (v1.6.2) |
TKG 1.4 User Documentation
TKG 1.4 Full release Note
Modern Apps Platform Learning 