Service Installer for VMware Tanzu is a one-click automation solution that enables VMware field engineers to easily and rapidly install, configure, and operate VMware Tanzu Kubernetes Grid on VMware vSphere, VMware Cloud on AWS, VCF, AWS, Azure, and VMware Tanzu Kubernetes Grid Service on VMware vSphere 7.0U2 & above.
In this blog post, we will see how to configure the service installer for VMware Tanzu. The service installer for VMware Tanzu is available in the ova format and can be downloaded from the VMware marketplace. In the earlier TKG deployment blog posts, we prepared a bootstrap VM before starting with TKG deployment and the TKG deployment was initiated from the bootstrap VM. If the bootstrap VM does not have a browser configured, the deployment can only be done via CLI with the help of TKG/TANZU command. Now, with the help of the service installer for VMware Tanzu, we can avoid this step and use the service installer VM as the bootstrap VM. Moreover, the service installer gives us an option to do the deployment via browser very easily.
Service installer Deployment:
Download the OVA file from the VMware Marketplace and deploy the appliance on your vSphere environment. I will put the screenshots below for your reference on how to deploy the ova file in your vSphere environment.
Once the OVA deployment of the service installer VM is completed, power on the virtual machine. You can access the Service Installer UI at http://<Service-Installer-VM-IP/FQDN>:8888/. It will take you to the initial page from where you can choose the type of TKG deployment that you would like to perform, as in the below screenshot.
Below are the four choices that we get as of now to deploy TKG.
- Tanzu Kubernetes Grid Multi-Cloud on VMware vSphere with DVS
- Tanzu Kubernetes Grid Multi-Cloud on VMware vSphere with NSX-T
- Tanzu Kubernetes Grid Multi-Cloud on VMware vSphere with NSX-T
- Tanzu with VMware vSphere DVS
Once you decide on the type of deployment, click on the deploy link and it will take you to the next page where you can choose if you would like to configure and generate a new JSON file for the deployment or if you already have a JSON file generated, that can be uploaded and re-configured as well.
For this blog post, I will choose to configure and generate JSON and click the PROCEED button as in the above screenshot.
That takes us to the page where we can configure our TKG deployment easily via the browser and generate the JSON file which can be used for future deployment as well.
You can also connect to the service installer via SSH using the root user account and the password set during the deployment of the appliance. Once logged in, you will see all the packages that are pre-installed on the service installer VM.
I hope this blog post gives you a good introduction to what a Service installer for VMware Tanzu is and the benefits of using this. This is a free appliance from VMware and you can download it after logging into the VMware Market place with your account. Please download and explore the product and also share it with others if this blog post has helped you. Thank you for reading! 🙂
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