PKS and vSphere Design
VMware PKS fully leverages vSphere clusters. Let's take a look at the supported cluster design and implementation.
When we look at vSphere clusters, the minimum amount of host is 2 and the maximum is 64, and those are the guidelines according to vSphere limits. You can have many clusters per vCenter server. There is not a hard limit on the amount of clusters, just the amount of hosts supported per vCenter according to the version of vSphere that is implemented.
There are three types of clusters: the management cluster, the compute cluster and the edge cluster. The management cluster is where you will see your vCenter server and contains management tools, like vRealize Log Insight, vRealize Network Insight, vRealize Operations Manager, and so on. The compute cluster is where you will see all your workloads, and the edge cluster is used for services and in the case of NSX is where you will see Edges.
The management cluster will host the vCenter Server, NSX-T manager, controllers, and all the management tools and appliances a customer will be using. The management cluster may or may not be prepped for NSX depending on which topology you will use.
The compute cluster has all the virtual machines that are actually nodes for the K8 clusters. If you have questions about that please check our previous blog "PKS the Big Picture". At the end of the day the compute cluster will have all our containers.
The edge cluster will host all the NSX Edge node VM's and will provide services, as well as provide on ramp/off ramp for the PKS environment.
Just as a refresher, the PKS management plane is PKS Ops Man, Bosh, PKS Cli and Harbor; and the different topologies types that we support will dictate where the PKS management plane gets deployed.
Four types of Topologies:
Topology 1- PKS Management plane in management cluster, with single compute cluster.
Topology 2- PKS Management plane in management cluster, with multiple compute clusters.
Topology 3- PKS Management plane in compute cluster, with single compute cluster.
Topology 4- PKS Management plane in the compute cluster, with multiple compute clusters.
The topology you use is according to your use case, but the most used and recommended design for production is to have the management plane for PKS in a logical switch of NSX-T in the compute cluster.
So now let's illustrate each of the topologies
Topology 1- PKS Management plane in management cluster, with single compute cluster.
Topology 2- PKS Management plane in management cluster, with multiple compute clusters.
Topology 3- PKS Management plane in compute cluster, with single compute cluster.
Topology 4- PKS Management plane in the compute cluster, with multiple compute clusters
To make it a little easier, here is a summary of the topologies and their support. We will discuss more about NSX-T Topologies and support and how that works with vSphere clusters and design in another blog coming up. So stay tuned…
