VMware Tanzu Kubernetes Grid 1.3.1

VMware Tanzu Kubernetes Grid provides Enterprise organizations with a consistent, upstream compatible, regional Kubernetes substrate across SDDC, Public Cloud, and Edge environments that is ready for end-user workloads and ecosystem integrations. TKG builds on trusted upstream and community projects and delivers an engineered and supported Kubernetes platform for end users and partners.

Key features include:

• The Tanzu Kubernetes Grid installer interface, a graphical installer that walks you through the process of deploying management clusters to vSphere, Amazon EC2, and Microsoft Azure.
• The Tanzu CLI, providing simple commands that allow you to deploy CNCF conformant Kubernetes clusters to vSphere, Amazon EC2, and Microsoft Azure.
• Binaries for Kubernetes and all of the components that you need in order to easily stand up an enterprise-class Kubernetes development environment. All binaries are tested and signed by VMware.
• Extensions for your Tanzu Kubernetes Grid instance, that provide authentication and authorization, logging, networking, monitoring, Harbor registry, and ingress control. 
• VMware support for your Tanzu Kubernetes Grid deployments.

New Features in Tanzu Kubernetes Grid v1.3.1

• New Kubernetes versions:
  • 1.20.5
  • 1.19.9
  • 1.18.17

• Workload clusters no longer use the Tanzu Mission Control Extension Manager.
• OIDC authentication no longer uses dex .
• Running tanzu cluster create --dry-run generates a workload cluster template from a configuration file without requiring a management cluster.
• Bill of Materials (BoM) handling supports custom registry sources for individual images, overriding default registry.
• Users can upgrade add-ons independently of upgrading Tanzu Kubernetes Grid.
• (vSphere) Supports routable, no-NAT IP addresses for workload cluster pods, enabling traceability and auditing.
• (vSphere v6.7) Installer interface includes access and configuration options for NSX-T Advanced Load Balancer.
• (vSphere) Supports deploying multiple MachineDeployment and KubeadmControlPlane objects without changing overlay file.
• (Azure) New cluster configuration variables:
  • AZURE_CUSTOM_TAGS applies Azure tags to cluster resources.
  • AZURE_ENABLE_PRIVATE_CLUSTER and AZURE_FRONTEND_PRIVATE_IP run workload clusters as private clusters with internal load balancers.
  • AZURE_ENABLE_NODE_DATA_DISK optionally provisions a data disk for worker nodes.
  • AZURE_CONTROL_PLANE_ and AZURE_NODE_ variables for DATA_DISK_SIZE_GIB and OS_DISK_SIZE_GIB configure data and OS disk sizes for control plane and worker nodes.
  • AZURE_CONTROL_PLANE_OS_DISK_STORAGE_ACCOUNT_TYPE and AZURE_NODE_OS_DISK_STORAGE_ACCOUNT_TYPE specify storage account for control plane and worker node disks.
• (Azure) Future-compatibility cluster configuration variable AZURE_ENABLE_ACCELERATED_NETWORKING (default value: false) can be used to enable Azure accelerated networking if the TKR supports it.

Supported Kubernetes Versions in Tanzu Kubernetes Grid v1.3.1

Each version of Tanzu Kubernetes Grid adds support for new Kubernetes versions. This version also supports versions of Kubernetes from previous versions of Tanzu Kubernetes Grid.

Tanzu Kubernetes Grid Version	Provided Kubernetes Versions	Supported in v1.3.1?
1.3.1	1.20.5 1.19.9 1.18.17	YES YES YES
1.3.0	1.20.4 1.19.8 1.18.16 1.17.16*	YES YES YES NO
1.2.1	1.19.3 1.18.10 1.17.13	YES YES NO
1.2	1.19.1 1.18.8 1.17.11	YES YES NO
1.1.3	1.18.6 1.17.9	YES NO
1.1.2	1.18.3 1.17.6	YES NO
1.1.0	1.18.2	YES
1.0.0	1.17.3	NO

Product Snapshot for Tanzu Kubernetes Grid v1.3.1

Tanzu Kubernetes Grid v1.3.1 supports the following infrastructure platforms and operating systems (OSs), as well as cluster creation and management, networking, storage, authentication, backup and migration, and observability components. The component versions listed in parentheses are included in Tanzu Kubernetes Grid v1.3.1. For more information, see Component Versions.

	vSphere	Amazon EC2	Azure
Infrastructure platform	vSphere 6.7U3vSphere 7VMware Cloud on AWS****Azure VMware Solution	Native AWS*	Native Azure
Cluster creation and management	Core Cluster API (v0.3.14), Cluster API Provider vSphere (v0.7.7)	Core Cluster API (v0.3.14), Cluster API Provider AWS (v0.6.4)	Core Cluster API (v0.3.14), Cluster API Provider Azure (v0.4.10)
Kubernetes node OS distributed with TKG	Photon OS 3, Ubuntu 20.04	Amazon Linux 2, Ubuntu 20.04	Ubuntu 18.04, Ubuntu 20.04
Bring your own image	Photon OS 3, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7, Ubuntu 18.04, Ubuntu 20.04	Amazon Linux 2, Ubuntu 18.04, Ubuntu 20.04	Ubuntu 18.04, Ubuntu 20.04
Container runtime	Containerd (v1.4.4) +	Containerd (v1.4.4) +	Containerd (v1.4.4) +
Container networking	Antrea (v0.11.3), Calico (v3.11.3)	Antrea (v0.11.3), Calico (v3.11.3)	Antrea (v0.11.3), Calico (v3.11.3)
Container registry	Harbor (v2.1.3)	Harbor (v2.1.3)	Harbor (v2.1.3)
Ingress	NSX Advanced Load Balancer Essentials (v20.1.3)**, Contour (v1.12.0)	Contour (v1.12.0)	Contour (v1.12.0)
Storage	vSphere Container Storage Interface (v2.1.0***) and vSphere Cloud Native Storage	In-tree cloud providers only	In-tree cloud providers only
Authentication	OIDC via Pinniped (v0.4.1), LDAP via Pinniped (v0.4.1) and Dex	OIDC via Pinniped (v0.4.1), LDAP via Pinniped (v0.4.1) and Dex	OIDC via Pinniped (v0.4.1), LDAP via Pinniped (v0.4.1) and Dex
Observability	Fluent Bit (v1.6.9), Prometheus (v2.18.1), Grafana (v7.3.5)	Fluent Bit (v1.6.9), Prometheus (v2.18.1), Grafana (v7.3.5)	Fluent Bit (v1.6.9), Prometheus (v2.18.1), Grafana (v7.3.5)
Backup and migration	Velero (v1.5.4)	Velero (v1.5.4)	Velero (v1.5.4)

NOTES:

• * See Supported AWS Regions below.
• ** NSX Advanced Load Balancer Essentials is supported on vSphere 6.7U3, vSphere 7, and VMware Cloud on AWS. You can download it from the Download VMware Tanzu Kubernetes Grid page.
• *** Version of vsphere_csi_driver. For a full list of vSphere Container Storage Interface components included in the Tanzu Kubernetes Grid v1.3.1 release, see Component Versions.
• **** For a list of VMware Cloud on AWS SDDC versions that are compatible with this release, see the VMware Product Interoperability Matrix.
• ⁺ Indicates a version bump for a security fix. For more information, see Updated Base Image Files.

Supported AWS Regions

You can use Tanzu Kubernetes Grid v1.3.1 to deploy clusters to the following AWS regions:

• ap-northeast-1
• ap-northeast-2
• ap-south-1
• ap-southeast-1
• ap-southeast-2
• eu-central-1
• eu-west-1
• eu-west-2
• eu-west-3
• sa-east-1
• us-east-1
• us-east-2
• us-gov-east-1
• us-gov-west-1
• us-west-2

User Documentation

The Tanzu Kubernetes Grid 1.3 documentation applies to all of the 1.3.x releases. It includes information about the following subjects:

• Tanzu Kubernetes Grid Concepts introduces the key components of Tanzu Kubernetes Grid and describes how you use them and what they do.
• Install the Tanzu CLI describes how to install the Tanzu CLI as well as the prerequisites for deploying Tanzu Kubernetes Grid on vSphere, Amazon EC2, and Microsoft Azure
• Deploying Management Clusters describes how to deploy Tanzu Kubernetes Grid management clusters to vSphere, Amazon EC2, and Microsoft Azure.
• Deploying Tanzu Kubernetes Clusters describes how to use the Tanzu Kubernetes Grid CLI to deploy Tanzu Kubernetes clusters from your management cluster
• Managing Cluster Lifecycles describes how to manage the lifecycle of management and workload clusters.
• Deploying Tanzu Kubernetes Grid Extensions and Shared Services describes how to set up local shared services for your Tanzu Kubernetes clusters, such as authentication and authorization, logging, networking, and ingress control.
• Building Machine Images describes how to build your own OS images for cluster nodes.
• Upgrading Tanzu Kubernetes Grid describes how to upgrade to this version.
• Troubleshooting Tanzu Kubernetes Grid includes tips to help you to troubleshoot common problems that you might encounter when installing Tanzu Kubernetes Grid and deploying Tanzu Kubernetes clusters.

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