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vSphere Pods using VDS based Supervisor in vSphere with Tanzu?

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vSphere with Tanzu has received an exciting update with the release of vSphere 8.0 Update 1, which removes the restriction for requiring NSX-based networking to deploy Supervisor Services. This is really cool because customers with only a VDS based Supervisor can now also get the benefits of the various Supervisor Services that vSphere with Tanzu supports!


For those not aware, Supervisor Services are deployed as vSphere Pods, which is a super tiny VM that boots up a Photon OS kernel and is configured with just enough resources to run one or more Linux containers. In earlier releases of vSphere with Tanzu, vSphere Pods required an NSX based Supervisor, but with this restriction removed in vSphere 8.0 Update 1, it seems like deploying vSphere Pods should also be possible with just a VDS based Supervisor? 🤔

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vSphere with Tanzu using Intel Arc GPU

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After successfully passing through the new Intel Arc 750/770 GPU to both a Linux and Windows VM running on ESXi, which also includes keyboard/mouse access and video output to an external monitor, I wanted to see if our vSphere with Tanzu solution could also take advantage of the new Intel Arc GPU?


The answer is absolutely YES! 😀

In vSphere 7.0 Update 3 MP01 and later, vSphere with Tanzu introduced the support for adding a Dynamic DirectPath I/O device to a VM that is provisioned using the VM Service Operator. Before we can take advantage of the new Dynamic DirectPath I/O feature, we first need to create a new custom VM Class definition that maps to our Intel Arc GPU.

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Automated enablement of vSphere with Tanzu using vSphere Zones in vSphere 8

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vSphere Zones is just one of the the many exciting new Tanzu capabilities that is now part of vSphere 8. My buddy Cormac Hogan did a nice write-up on vSphere Zones, which I highly recommend folks check it out get more details.

This blog post will focus on using the new vCenter Server REST API to enable vSphere with Tanzu using the new vSphere Zones feature in vSphere 8.


For those interested in running a lean and minimal setup in their homelab, you can deploy a fully functional vSphere with Tanzu environment with just 32GB of memory and this is still applicable for vSphere 8!

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