In this blog, I will walk through the following

• Features & Benefits of Tanzu Data Management Console (TDMC)
• TDMC Architecture Diagram
• Installation Pre-Requisites for TDMC
• Installation Procedure

What is VMware Tanzu Data Management Console

VMware Tanzu Data Management Console (TDMC) offers database and data services management for Kubernetes. It provides a data-as-a-service for on-demand provisioning and automated management of databases (PostgreSQL and MySQL databases) and other data services like RabbitMQ and Valkey in Kubernetes environments.

It provides the following features and benefits

Features

Multi-Cloud Support	Unified orchestration and automation of data services on Kubernetes clusters running on various clouds (TKGs, TKGm, GKE, Openshift)
Provisioning	Simplified provisioning of different configurations for data services with pre-defined or custom t-shirt sizing of compute memory and storage resources
Scaling	Modify instances depending on usage (scale up, scale down, disk extension)
Backup	On-demand Backup of provisioned data services on Built-in Object Store and external locations like S3 or MinIO.
Observability	Access to metrics and logs for deployed data services.
Point in Time Recovery (PiTR)	On-Demand point-in-time recovery (PiTR) of Databases

Benefits

Simplified Operations	Self Service provisioning data services from UI, API, and automated tools like Terraform; with turn around time of less than an hour
Developer-Ready Data Infrastructure	Get the Data Services on demand which developers need to create apps at scale, plus the governance IT admins and DBAs require to manage databases.
Peace of Mind	Reduce risks with central security, compliance, support, and lifecycle management.

VMware Tanzu Data Management Console Architecture

 

Planning your VMware Tanzu Data Management Console Deployment

The first step is to plan your TDMC deployment depending on your requirements. You will need to select the Installation Size and the supported Kubernetes distributions

Deployment Size

Size	Minimum K8s Workers	Resources Required
Tiny	3	CPU – 28 vCPU Requests / 40 vCPU Limit Memory – 28 GB Requests / 50 GB Limit PVC Storage – 330 GB
Small	3	CPU – 52 vCPU Requests / 78 vCPU Limit Memory – 68 GB Requests / 108 GB Limit PVC Storage – 670 GB
Medium	3	CPU – 80 vCPU Requests / 108 vCPU Limit Memory – 108 GB Requests / 150 GB Limit PVC Storage – 750 GB
Large	3	CPU – 108 vCPU Requests / 120 vCPU Limit Memory – 150 GB Requests / 200 GB Limit PVC Storage – 900 GB

Supported Kubernetes Versions

Following are supported K8s versions for Control Plane Deployment.

Data-plane supported versions are different. 

Distribution	K8s Versions
vSphere Kubernetes Service (VKS) previously known as Tanzu Kubernetes Service (TKGs)	v1.26.5+vmware.2-fips.1-tkg.1**
Tanzu Kubernetes Grid Multi-cloud (TKGm)	2.5.0 Kubernetes versions v1.30, v1.29, v1.28, v1.27
Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE)	K8s version 1.30, 1.29, and 1.28
RedHat Openshift	K8s version v1.28.7+f1b5f6c

**  I have tested TDMC Control Plane deployment with the following TKRs as well

• TKr 1.28.8 for vSphere 8.x
• TKr 1.29.4 for vSphere 8.x
• TKr 1.30.1 for vSphere 8.x
• TKr 1.31.1 for vSphere 8.x

Pre-Requisites

Before you begin installation you will need to review the following pre-requisites 

Kubernetes Clusters

To install TDMC Control Plane you will need Kubernetes Cluster with a supported version with a minimum of 3 workers along with Load Balancer and Storage Class

Load Balancer with Routable IPs

TDMC Control Plane needs at least three to five available IP addresses to be assigned to Kubernetes service type LoadBalancer:

one for ingress and two for DNS (TCP and UDP) for a tiny size control plane, or else four for a high-availability DNS server if the control plane is larger than tiny.

Storage Class

Control Plane requires storage class with read-write once (RWO) mode support to create PVCs for various components

Dedicated Domain for TDMC

A base domain for your Tanzu Data Management Console in your Corporate DNS Server
tdmc.example.com

DNS Delegation from Corporate DNS Server

TDMC deploys its own DNS Server (Bind) and dynamically manages the FQDNs for the required data services hence we need to have DNS delegation configured in the Corporate DNS server to forward domain requests to the TDMC-managed DNS servers

SMTP Server

You will need SMTP details to be configured in TDMC to send invites & notifications

Bootstrap Machine

You will need a machine/VM with the following

• 50 GB of minimum Storage.
• Access to the Internet to download the installer from the Broadcom Support Portal
• Access to Private Container Registry (Harbor in my lab)
• Access to the Kubernetes Cluster where TPK8 SM will be installed
• Various Packages
  • Helm Package Manager,
  • kubectl,
  • kubectl vsphere plugin

Note – In my lab, I have a linux VM with 4 vCPU, 8 GB RAM with 150 GB HDD

Port Requirements

Source	Destination	Port/Service	Purpose
Bootstrap Machine	Broadcom Support Portal	443 (HTTPs)	To download the TDMC bundle
Bootstrap Machine	TKGs K8s Control Plane Cluster	6443 (HTTPs)	To install TDMC SM control plane
Bootstrap Machine	Private Container Registry	443 (HTTPs)	To push images using tdmc cli   Applicable for Airgapped environment only
Bootstrap Machine	Broadcom Image Registry URLs tdmc.packages.broadcom.com *s3.amazonaws.com	443 (HTTPs)	To pull images from Broadcom Registry
Bootstrap Machine	TKGs K8s Control Plane External IP for DNS Server	53 (TCP/UDP)	To resolve FQDNs for TDMC components & data services
TKGs K8s Control Plane Cluster Nodes	Private Container Registry	443 (HTTPs)	To pull images   Applicable for Airgapped environment only
TKGs K8s Control Plane Cluster Nodes	Broadcom Image Registry URLs tdmc.packages.broadcom.com *s3.amazonaws.com	443 (HTTPs)	To pull images   Applicable for Non-Airgapped environment only

For a detailed list of ports exposed by the TDMC Control Plane on the Kubernetes Cluster. Please refer to the documentation. 

Download & Extract Installer Bundle for VMware Tanzu Data Management Console

You can download and extract the installer bundle for your respective bootstrap machine. It supports

• Mac
• Linux
• Windows

Login to https://support.broadcom.com & navigate to Tanzu Data Management Console

https://support.broadcom.com/group/ecx/productdownloads?subfamily=Tanzu%20Data%20management%20console

Deploy VMware Tanzu Data Management Console

At the command line in a new terminal, initialize the TDMC installer by running the install command:

tdmc-installer install -u

This will open the UI installer 

Select Provider.

In my lab, I am going to use Tanzu Kubernetes Grid (TKGs)

Select Credential Type.

In my,lab I will be using KubeConfig for the TKGs Cluster

Provide Storage Class Name

This will be used to create PVCs 

Select Control Plane Size

In my lab, I have used small size

Enter Image Registry Details.

In my lab, I have used the Broadcom Registry

Go to the customer support portal of Broadcom, navigate to Tanzu Data Management Console, and click on the green badge to download token

Specify Domain & Certificate details

Please keep the following things in mind

• Configure DNS delegation in your corporate DNS server for this domain
• If you are going to use your own certificate then you will need to ensure it includes the domain name specified here.
  • For POC purposes select Generate Self-Signed Certificate
• Please note the generated Control Plane URL. You will need this to log in to the UI

Specify SMTP Details

This is required for sending email notifications

Specify SRE Login Credentials

This is the initial login which you will use to login to the TDMC Console

Review the details

In case you want to redeploy the environment you can download the configuration in YAML.

It should take 30-40 mins approx however it can depend on the respective environment.

You should see the following message 

Access the UI

Once the installation is completed you can navigate to the Control Plane URL

https://tdmc-cp-<env>.<domain>

In my case it is https://tpe-cp-stg.mmlab.com

Click on Sign-In on the top right and enter the SRE Login Credentials specified above