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Modern Kubernetes Visualization using Radar

02.01.2026 by William Lam // Leave a Comment

Over the years, many graphical user interfaces have appeared for Kubernetes, but only a few continue to be actively maintained and developed. While I prefer the standard kubectl CLI for basic interactions with a Kubernetes (k8s) cluster, a visual representation can be extremely helpful for troubleshooting and debugging.

Headlamp was my go to UI tool for k8s, which provides a simliar user experience to many of the previous Kubernetes visualization tools, nothing fancy but it gets the job done.

I recently discovered another OSS Kubernetes visualization tool called Radar, which aims to fill some of the gaps left by existing tools on the market. I was a bit skeptical as this could just be another "modern" tool until the next one is built, but I figured I would give it a try!


At first glance, it has a much cleaner, modern look and feel after I connected it to my vSphere Kubernetes Service (VKS) cluster. The homepage provides a summary of all the expected datapoints including versioning, resource utilization, deployment details, and the health of components and workloads.

[Read more...]

Categories // Kubernetes, VMware Cloud Foundation, vSphere Kubernetes Service Tags // VCF 9.0, VKS

Dynamically Rebalance or Evacuate VKS Control Plane / Worker Nodes across vSphere Zones in VCF 9.0

12.16.2025 by William Lam // 2 Comments

vSphere Zones in VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) 9.0 have been enhanced to offer greater flexibility in resource consumption and isolation for both vSphere Supervisor Control Plane VMs (Management), vSphere Kubernetes Service (VKS) Cluster (Workloads) or a combination of the two.


Depending on your required level of management availability and workload isolation, administrations have several vSphere Supervisor Zone deployment options to select from:

  • Single Management Zone with Combined Workload Zones Model
  • Single Management Zone with Isolated Workload Zones Model
  • Three Management Zones with Combined Workload Zones Model
  • Three Management Zones with Isolated Workload Zones Model

Note: The management zone selection (single vs multi) is only configurable during the initial enablement of vSphere Supervisor. It is currently NOT possible to reconfigure the vSphere Supervisor to switch from a single to multi-zone management without re-deploying vSphere Supervisor.

[Read more...]

Categories // VMware Cloud Foundation, vSphere Kubernetes Service Tags // VCF 9.0, vSphere Kubernetes Service

Quick Tip - Using VCF CLI to login to vSphere Supervisor when configured with VCF Automation

12.05.2025 by William Lam // 1 Comment

When a vSphere Supervisor Cluster is configured to be consumed by VCF Automation, the Identity Provider (IdP) for that vSphere Supervisor is automatically configured to redirect to VCF Automation (VCFA) as an OIDC relay.


When an end user wishes to access or manage their resources, they will be directed to the IdP that has been configured for their Organization Portal. To create a k8s login context, they will need to create a VCFA API token that is then passed to the VCF CLI before they can interact with their resources using kubectl.

Below is an example VCF CLI command where I am logging into an Organization Portal called legal and I have specified my VCFA endpoint along with the VCFA API Token to login as an end user.

vcf context create legal --endpoint auto01.vcf.lab --api-token $VCF_CLI_VCFA_API_TOKEN --insecure-skip-tls-verify --type cci --tenant-name legal

However, if you are an administrator who is managing the underlying VCF Infrastructure and need to troubleshoot or access the vSphere Supervisor Cluster, an alternative workflow will be required.

[Read more...]

Categories // VCF Automation, VMware Cloud Foundation, vSphere Kubernetes Service, vSphere Supervisor Tags // VCF 9.0

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William is Distinguished Platform Engineering Architect in the VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) Division at Broadcom. His primary focus is helping customers and partners build, run and operate a modern Private Cloud using the VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) platform.

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