VMware’s Container Service Extension (CSE)  on vCloud Director is a VMware vCloud Director extension that helps Cloud Providers to Offer Kubernetes-as-a-Service to their tenants , who can easily create and work with Kubernetes clusters. basically it means  using CSE a Service Provider can offer compute resources to tenants secured through a multi-tenant IaaS vCloud Director deployment , and tenants/end users will have the ability to deploy & manage their kubernetes clusters from a self service portal

CSE brings Kubernetes-as-a-service to vCD by creating customized VM templates and enabling tenant/organization administrators to deploy fully functional Kubernetes clusters in self-contained vApps.

CSE Components:

• CSE Client

  • Tenant Organization Administrators and users can use CSE client to handle Kubernetes cluster management. This includes deploying clusters, adding worker nodes, configuring NFS storage etc…
  • CSE client running on a Virtual Machine runs as an extension of vcd-cli which leverages CSE/vCD public API to manage and administer the service.
  • CSE Client which is extension of  vcd-cli offers easy way to manage life cycle of the kubernetes cluster by the Tenant.
  • From this VM CSE commands are getting issued to vCloud Director , which takes these instructions using AMQP message bus to CSE server.

• vCloud Director Based Cloud

  • Service Provider’s cloud administrators will setup vCD, Org Network , catalog etc.
  • vCD will be the platform which will provider compute , network , security and multi-tenancy on which kubernetes clusters will be deployed.
  • CSE will use vCloud Directors Extensibility framework to deploy Kubernetes cluster , kubernetes cluster scaling operations like scale up/down , scale In/out etc..

• CSE Server

  • Service Provider’s cloud administrators will setup CSE config file, CSE Server, and VM templates.
  • You install CSE Server on a new VM and it works in conjunction with vCD extensibility framework.
  • CSE automatically downloads and installs required binaries like Kubernetes , docker , weave etc on a template.
  • Handles CSE Client request for creation and deletion of K8s Cluster and nodes.

User Accessibility of Kubernetes cluster

• Kubectl

  • Developers and other Kubernetes users interact with CSE Kubernetes clusters using kubernetes native “Kubectl” command line tool, For any tenant  users, Kubernetes clusters work like any other Kubernetes cluster implementation. No special knowledge of vCloud Director or CSE administration is required. Such users do not even need a vCloud Director account.

Below figure clearly lists out the required component and their owners , this picture and more details can be accessed from here

Installation Type:

Installation Type dependent on the type of the user as stated in above figure:

Kubernetes User – Install Kubectl on your laptop/desktop.

Tenant Administrator – Install CSE and configure CSE Client on a VM.

Service Provider – Install CSE , Install Messaging Bus , configure and register with vCloud Director.

In the Next series of posts i will be covering installation and configuration of CSE.