In this blog, I will walk through the following
- What is a Data Plane
- Types of Dataplane (Dedicated / Shared)
- Connectivity & Version Requirements
- Onboarding Procedure to Tanzu Data Management Console (TDMC)
What is a Data Plane in VMware Tanzu Data Management Console?
A Kubernetes cluster that hosts database services that are self-managed via Tanzu Data Management Console (TDMC). Installing TDMC bootstraps components and operators onto this cluster, to run TDMC services. Users log in to Tanzu Data Management Console to provision and manage database instances and their users via a browser-based GUI, the tdmc CLI, or an API.
Types of Data Planes in VMware Tanzu Data Management Console
There are 2 types of Data planes
- Dedicated Data Plane: A data plane cluster that hosts service instances that can only be used by members of a specific organization.
- Shared Data Plane: A data plane cluster that hosts service instances that can be used by members of all organization
Supported Kubernetes Versions
The following are supported K8s versions for Data Plane.
Distribution |
K8s Versions |
vSphere Kubernetes Service (VKS) previously known as Tanzu Kubernetes Service (TKGs) |
v1.27.11—vmware.1-fips.1-tkg.2 |
Tanzu Kubernetes Grid Multi-cloud (TKGm) | 2.5.0 Kubernetes versions v1.28, v1.27 |
Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE) |
K8s version 1.28 and 1.27 |
RedHat Openshift |
K8s version v1.28.7+f1b5f6c |
Port Requirements
Source |
Destination |
Port/Service |
Purpose |
Bootstrap Machine |
TKGs K8s Data Plane Cluster | 6443 (HTTPs) | To install TDMC SM control plane |
TKGs K8s Data Plane Cluster Nodes | Private Container Registry | 443 (HTTPs) | To pull images
Applicable for Airgapped environment only |
TKGs K8s Data Plane Cluster Nodes |
Broadcom Image Registry URLs
|
443 (HTTPs) |
To pull images
Applicable for Non-Airgapped environment only |
TKGs K8s Data Plane Cluster Nodes |
TKGs K8s Control Plane Cluster Nodes |
53 (TCP/UDP)
443 (HTTPs) 6443 (HTTPs) |
|
For a detailed list of ports exposed by the TDMC Control Plane on the Kubernetes Cluster. Please refer to the documentation.
Onboarding Procedure
Create Cloud Provider Accounts to VMware Tanzu Data Management Console
Before you can onboard TKC Clusters to TDMC you will need a Cloud Provider Account
To create cloud provider accounts, log in to TDMC as an SRE, navigate to Infrastructure > Cloud Provider Accounts, and Click Add a Cloud Provider Account
- Select Provider as TKGs
- Select Hosting Type as Shared
- You can refer above for types of data plane)
- Provide Credentials
- For a detailed list of permissions you can refer to documentation . For POC we will use administartor@vsphere.local account
Add Data Plane to VMware Tanzu Management Console
Log in to Tanzu Data Management Console as an SRE user, navigate to Infrastructure > Data Planes, and click Create New Data Plane at the upper right.
Select Provider as TKGs and Select Hosting Type as Shared (You can refer above for types of data plane)
Select the Cloud Provider Account that you added in the previous step. It will fetch the list of K8s Clusters on the cloud provider account namespace. Select the Cluster for hosting the data plane
Select the Storage Class. In my lab, I have used vsan-default-storage-policy
Leave rest with default values
Review
Once the request is submitted you should see data plane listed
You can navigate to Tasks and view the Adding Data Plane tasks to check the status. It should be take approx 30 mins to bootstrap the cluster