A Principled Technologies report: Hands-on testing. Real-world results.

Make Kubernetes containers on Dell EMC PowerEdge

R740xd servers easier to manage with VMware Tanzu
Running VMware Tanzu on a VMware vSphere 7.0 Update 1 environment with
Dell EMC PowerEdge servers provided centralized container management
features at reasonable cost
The growing use of containerized applications in business has been significant
over the past few years. Organizations seek to modernize their applications by
moving from monolithic legacy apps to a common Kubernetes (K8s) framework,
while also facing the common challenges that come with change, such as
choosing the right tool for managing this new paradigm, friction between
IT and DevOps throughout the deployment and day 2 operations, and cost.
Organizations can achieve this modular cloud-native approach by combining two
evolved products in the software and hardware space—Dell EMC™ PowerEdge™ Only 7 tasks
and VMware vSphere—with VMware Tanzu. VMware® Tanzu™ on VMware to add Tanzu to an
vSphere® hosts can streamline K8s deployment with a wizard-based approach and existing vSphere
a single configuration point with automatic cluster deployment, and it can provide environment
rich, ongoing management in an environment that IT is already familiar with. In
turn, Dell EMC PowerEdge R740xd servers support vSphere hosts with strong
CPU, RAM, and storage resources, which could help reduce data center sprawl.

In the Principled Technologies data center, we created an environment based on

three Dell EMC PowerEdge R740xd servers running VMware vSphere 7.0 Update
1 and VMware Tanzu to show that the latest release of vSphere offers support for
this container management solution. This report explores some of the benefits
that the combination of Tanzu, vSphere, and PowerEdge R740xd servers can
bring to K8s deployments and describes our experience deploying Tanzu to the Add just one
existing environment. Adding Tanzu required seven tasks, a straightforward path license to get
that could allow admins to set up a future ready K8s solution quickly and easily so up and running
DevOps teams can spend more time creating containers and developing apps. with Tanzu
We also found that adding Tanzu to a vSphere 7.0 Update 1 environment of
PowerEdge R740xd servers would require the addition of only the Tanzu Basic
Edition license, making it a viable choice for organizations seeking to implement
centralized containerized workloads with minimal acquisition costs.

Make Kubernetes containers on Dell EMC PowerEdge R740xd servers easier to manage with VMware Tanzu May 2021 (Revised)
 App modernization: A closer look

App modernization has become a more common term recently with the rapid growth in use
of nature of containers and orchestration. But what benefits does it bring? And what exactly
is it? To answer these questions, we must look backward first.

The past three decades have brought the evolution and maturity of personal computing,
the birth and explosive growth of the world wide web, a mobile computing revolution,
the innovation and adoption of the Internet of Things, an ever-increasing amount of data,
and a monumental shift to the cloud for organizations and end users alike. Backend data
center computing models have shifted over that time from a monolithic, static client-
server application and infrastructure model to a widely used virtualization paradigm, where
virtual machines (VMs) hosted the interconnected middleware and backend database
components of application stacks. Application designs grew more interdependent and
compartmentalized, creating efficiency issues, VM sprawl, and management challenges—
not to mention the challenge of shadow IT and integrating with the public cloud.

Containers are compartmentalized, and therefore well suited for application modularity.
They break down components of applications so admins can easily recreate, move, and
deploy them almost instantly. Using containers, for example, IT staff can deploy application
stack components such as web or database servers in seconds, in contrast to the monolithic
model that required an infrastructure request and waiting days for another team to respond.

Organizations that modernize their monolithic, legacy applications with containers

could potentially take advantage of the features—portability, speed of deployment, and
more—to improve business operations, expand the organization’s user base, and increase
customer satisfaction.

About Dell EMC PowerEdge R740xd servers

The Dell EMC PowerEdge R740xd is a two-socket rack server
built on 2nd Generation Intel® Xeon® Scalable processors that
fits into just 2U of rack space. With extra drive slots for storage
scalability, the PowerEdge R740xd supports up to 24 NVMe
drives, 32 2.5” drives—or 18 3.5” drives—as well as Intel
Optane™ PMem. The PowerEdge R740xd supports demanding
workloads including HPC, software-defined storage, and Big
Data. To learn more about the advantages that the Dell EMC
PowerEdge R740xd offers, visit https://www.dell.com/en-us/
work/shop/povw/poweredge-r740xd.

Make Kubernetes containers on Dell EMC PowerEdge R740xd servers easier to manage with VMware Tanzu May 2021 (Revised) | 2
 How Kubernetes and VMware Tanzu can enhance app modernization

As we discussed in the previous section, organizations IT staff can install VMware Tanzu on existing on-
may choose containers, like those created and premises servers, allowing DevOps teams to modernize
managed with K8s solutions, to help modernize their applications with K8s on-premises, using future-
applications because of the flexibility these solutions ready resources before deploying K8s containers and
offer. Developers and IT admins can select the right applications to a production cloud. Without Tanzu, IT
application framework, languages, monitoring and teams might need specialized Linux expertise to install
logging tools, and other necessary resources for K8s and configure nodes manually.
their applications.
According to the VMware Tanzu solution brief,
However, app modernization is more than just moving “VMware Tanzu addresses the Day 1 and Day 2
to containers. It is an ongoing, multi-team process that Kubernetes operations burden with a complete, easy-
encompasses orchestration, security, and management. to-upgrade Kubernetes runtime with pre-integrated
An app modernization effort should preferably use and validated components. This enables you to
tools that your staff already know, so you can lower run the same K8s across data center, public cloud
training costs. For organizations that already use and edge for a consistent, secure experience for all
VMware software and tools, the learning curve could development teams.”1
be minimal. A VMware Tanzu K8s solution can deliver
orchestration and manageability to the containerization To learn more about how VMware Tanzu
effort using vSphere, a virtualization platform with streamlines Kubernetes management, visit
over a decade of market exposure. It lets you manage https://tanzu.vmware.com/tanzu.
clusters of containers, which can help developers and
IT teams scale and simplify container creation to help
meet those modernization challenges on software and
hardware platforms that are already familiar to them.

Getting a future-ready infrastructure of Kubernetes, VMware

Tanzu, and Dell EMC PowerEdge R740xd servers

Modernizing applications requires constant dedication to meeting the challenges of not just today’s disruptive
technologies but those of the future as well. A Dell EMC PowerEdge R740xd server cluster could provide a solid
foundation for modernizing applications because it is fully capable of running a Tanzu K8s solution. Building your
VMware Tanzu environment with new PowerEdge R740xd servers gives your K8s environment a known
and stable base to grow from, one that promotes the innovation your organization needs to grow.

Make Kubernetes containers on Dell EMC PowerEdge R740xd servers easier to manage with VMware Tanzu May 2021 (Revised) | 3
 More on Tanzu architecture

VMware vSphere with Tanzu is VMware’s distribution

of the open-source Kubernetes container software. Pod Pod Pod Pod Pod Pod
It consists of several software layers and groups
Namespace Namespace Namespace Namespace
of virtual resources that run on top of traditional
VMware architecture. Figure 1 shows a workload Control Worker Worker Worker Control Worker Worker Worker
plane plane
platform architecture in a vSphere with Tanzu
VM VM VM VM VM VM VM VM
software-defined data center (SDDC).
Tanzu Kubernetes cluster Tanzu Kubernetes cluster
vSphere admins can enable a vSphere cluster
for managing a Tanzu workload by creating a Namespace Namespace
Supervisor cluster on the vSphere cluster. This
Tanzu
VM Cluster
Supervisor cluster acts as a high-level control operator
Supervisor cluster API
Kubernetes
Grid
plane that allows admins to manage namespace
creation, licensing, and networking integration. The SDDC
Supervisor cluster runs on top of the VMware SDDC
layer that consists of at least three physical servers Figure 1: A diagram of a workload platform architecture in a
running VMware ESXi, VMware NSX-T Data Center vSphere and Tanzu SDDC. Source: Principled Technologies
(adapted from VMware)2.
or vSphere networking, and shared storage.

Moving from the control plane to the workload plane

where users’ applications reside, vSphere with Tanzu After an admin creates the Supervisor cluster,
enables the creation of Tanzu Kubernetes clusters, they create a vSphere Namespace. By default,
which are fully functional K8s clusters consisting of VMs. the namespace has unlimited resources within the
Within the Tanzu Kubernetes cluster are many control Supervisor cluster. A vSphere administrator can set
VMs and workload VMs. vSphere Pods, which reside in limits for CPU, memory, and storage that a Tanzu
the workload VMs, are the equivalent of K8s Pods and Kubernetes cluster can use within the namespace.
contain groups of containers. The Tanzu Kubernetes
When provisioning a Tanzu Kubernetes cluster, users
Grid Service allows admins to provision, operate, and
specify the VM class type for each controller and
manage a Tanzu Kubernetes Cluster.
worker node for their pod. Each class type reserves
For vSphere Pods, VMs running inside the Supervisor a set number of resources for the VM, including
cluster, and VMs running inside a Tanzu Kubernetes CPU, memory, and storage. In addition, each
cluster, vSphere with Tanzu uses shared storage for class type has guaranteed and best effort options
persistent volumes. depending on use case.

After an admin creates a namespace and configures

resource limits, user permissions, and storage policies,
a developer can use the Tanzu Kubernetes Grid Service
API to access the namespace, create Tanzu Kubernetes
clusters, and run K8s workloads by using the same
kubectl and YAML definition they would use with
standard Kubernetes clusters.

Make Kubernetes containers on Dell EMC PowerEdge R740xd servers easier to manage with VMware Tanzu May 2021 (Revised) | 4
 Containerize your apps using VMware Tanzu on a Dell EMC
PowerEdge R740xd cluster for reasonable costs
Technology costs can seem daunting, especially when you’re acquiring new technologies and platforms.
However, choosing known and proven platforms that your staff are familiar with, such as Dell EMC PowerEdge
servers and VMware vSphere virtualization platform, could help to mitigate some onboarding costs.

For this report, we wanted to estimate the cost of the solution we tested, a three-node cluster of Dell EMC
PowerEdge servers running a recent VMware vSphere version and VMware Tanzu. Including vSphere and Tanzu
Basic gives your company a good head start on their way to app modernization, containerization, and the
benefits those changes bring. Plus, vSphere and Tanzu are likely known platforms for your DevOps teams.

Using publicly available retail pricing data, we estimate that purchasing Tanzu and the three-server, six-
processor solution we tested would cost approximately $161,830 USD.3 If you already had these servers in
a VMware virtualized environment, you could purchase the Tanzu Basic license for only $17,910.4 In Table 1,
we break down the cost of the entire solution we tested for both scenarios. The entire solution is available for
purchase through Dell.

Table 1: Publicly available pricing information for our solution.

Cost of adding
Tanzu to existing Cost for new
Category Item
PowerEdge procurement
environment
N/A
Hardware PowerEdge R740 server (three-node cluster) $67,431.00
(already purchased)

N/A
VMware vSphere - CPU Edition (six CPUs)
(already purchased)
VMware software $86,440.20
vSphere Tanzu Basic (six CPUs) $17,910.00

N/A
Support Next Business Day - ProSupport, Three Year Support $7,959.54
(already purchased)

Upgrade & new procurement total hardware & software cost with Tanzu Basic $17,910.00 $161,830.74

If you consider that members of your IT staff might know or have worked with the key technologies of this
solution, supporting Tanzu and containerized apps with an investment like this could deliver solid value for
your organization.

VMware + Tanzu

Leverage a three-server solution

Modernize applications with containers

Accelerate DevOps with Tanzu Basic

Make Kubernetes containers on Dell EMC PowerEdge R740xd servers easier to manage with VMware Tanzu May 2021 (Revised) | 5
 Adding VMware Tanzu to a VMware vSphere 7.0 Update 1
environment running on Dell EMC PowerEdge R740xd servers

Admins can follow a clear path to deploy Tanzu to a

vSphere environment. We completed seven tasks (see Tasks required to add VMware Tanzu to a
Figure 2), each involving multiple processes and actions. VMware vSphere 7.0 Update 1 environment
This section explains, in some technical detail, how we on Dell EMC PowerEdge R740xd servers
added Tanzu, and it offers guidance on how to prepare for
the deployment.
1 Create a Distributed vSwitch and Port Group
19 steps
Adding Tanzu to the vSphere environment requires
some planning to meet all prerequisites and configure 2 Create a DevOps user
6 steps
networking for the initial deployment. Previous versions of
VMware Tanzu supported only environments with VMware
3 Create the content libraries
NSX network virtualization. However, vSphere 7.0 Update 19 steps
1 supports the use of a load balancer appliance along
with standard vSphere Distributed vSwitches (DvS) that 4 Create storage tags and policies
18 steps
could ease deployment for admins. For our deployment,
we chose to use the latter approach with HAProxy, a 5 Deploy the load balancer
13 steps
free load balancer and proxy server for TCP- and HTTP-
based applications.
6 Configure the workload management engine
11 steps
See the science behind the report for details on what
we did and information on how to obtain HAProxy. 7 Define a namespace
8 steps

Figure 2: Tasks required to add VMware Tanzu to a VMware vSphere

7.0 Update 1 environment on Dell EMC PowerEdge R740xd servers.
Source: Principled Technologies.

Make Kubernetes containers on Dell EMC PowerEdge R740xd servers easier to manage with VMware Tanzu May 2021 (Revised) | 6
 Completing prerequisites: Tasks 1 through 4

1. Creating a Distributed vSwitch 3. Creating the content libraries

and Port Group We created the necessary content libraries (centralized
We created our DvS with one port group dedicated repositories to help manage and distribute VMs, scripts,
for the workload network. This was the network that and other files for VMs) that vSphere used to deploy
the Tanzu components used for communication within the HAProxy appliance and the Tanzu K8s images. It
the K8s cluster. Our process took 19 steps, but if you took us 12 steps to create and populate the HAProxy
already have a DvS, you can simply add the Port Group library. The Tanzu Kubernetes Grid (TKG) library, a
with any required virtual local area network (VLAN) tags, subscribed content library, required 7 more steps.
which could take as few as 4 steps. Also of note: The
4. Creating storage tags and policies
Tanzu environment required a management network
to communicate with the vSphere environment, DNS, We created a storage tag, which allows you to create
and other internet-based resources, and we used the tag-based policies, and assigned it to the target
default VM network. storage. Our shared storage was a network file system
(NFS) share accessible by all ESXi hosts in the cluster.
2. Creating a DevOps user This straightforward process required only 8 steps.
For our deployment, we created a dedicated DevOps
We also created a VM Storage policy utilizing the
user in vSphere to access the K8s resources and
storage tag, which defined the target storage for
assigned permissions. Environments and permissions
Tanzu VM placement, in 10 steps.
will vary based on many factors. This process required
6 simple steps.

Make Kubernetes containers on Dell EMC PowerEdge R740xd servers easier to manage with VMware Tanzu May 2021 (Revised) | 7
 Networking considerations

Planning your deployment can help you reduce or avoid networking conflicts. Before beginning the Tanzu
deployment, we defined the networking for the cluster. The solution required only one additional network
scope (a range of IP addresses).

Our network needed a gateway for successful deployment, and we used a network address translation
(NAT) gateway.

The HAProxy deployment refers to the network labels and addresses differently than the VMware Workload
Management configuration wizard. Without planning, IT staff may not understand the networking needs
for adding Tanzu to a vSphere environment. As you’re planning the networking for your solution, you might
need the following addresses:

• The HAProxy management address – • Workload Management addresses –

An address on the management network Addresses on the management network
used to access the HAProxy API or used by the Control Plane VMs that
• The HAProxy workload address – manage the namespaces; the environment
An address on the workload network for internal requires five sequential addresses
communication with the Tanzu components; • Workload Network addresses –
must be outside the ranges of other addresses Addresses used within the Tanzu environment
• Load balancer/virtual server addresses – for workload deployment and internal
Addresses on the workload network to provide communication with the management VMs;
load balancing services to the Tanzu deployment; input as an IP range
you provide these addresses to the HAProxy
wizard in CIDR format; they must be bindable
by the HAProxy and outside the ranges of other
addresses, especially the gateway address

Note: Once configured, the HAProxy will respond to the HAProxy management and workload addresses
as well as the load balancer/virtual server addresses, regardless of whether they’re being used. You provide
these addresses again in explicit format during workload management configuration.

Table 2 shows our networking configurations. You can simply replace our network addresses, labels,
and VLANs with your own.

Table 2: Networking information for adding VMware Tanzu to our existing VMware vSphere environment
on three Dell EMC PowerEdge R740xd servers.

Purpose Address(es) Network VLAN

HAProxy Management 10.206.201.200/16 VM network 206

HAProxy Workload 192.168.1.2/24 Workload network 11

Load Balancer/Virtual Servers 192.168.1.240/29 (192.168.1.240 – 192.168.1.247) Workload network 11

Workload Management 10.206.201.201 – 10.206.201.205 VM network 206

Workload Network 192.168.1.64/26 (192.168.1.65 – 192.168.1.126) Workload network 11

Make Kubernetes containers on Dell EMC PowerEdge R740xd servers easier to manage with VMware Tanzu May 2021 (Revised) | 8
 Deploying the load balancer: Task 5 Configuring Tanzu: Tasks 6 & 7

5. Deploying the load balancer 6. Deploying the workload management engine

Once we had identified all the network addresses, Configuring the workload management engine
we deployed HAProxy from the content library. required 11 steps. In this task, we deployed and
We mapped our network addressing in advance, reconfigured control plane VMs for clustering. Invalid
requiring only 13 steps and about 10 minutes. Upon network information error messages in the vSphere task
completion, we powered on HAProxy and connected manager might self-correct.
to https://10.206.201.200:5556/v2 via a web browser,
7. Defining a namespace
which provided a list of the HAProxy services’ statuses
through the API. Once we successfully configured the Tanzu workload
management engine, we needed to configure a
namespace. This was a quick task of 8 steps that
included defining a namespace and then assigning it
resources, such as storage, permissions, and content
libraries. After completing that task, our developers
could connect to the environment and deploy
container workloads.

We used a configuration wizard to complete the Tanzu deployment tasks. Deploying with a configuration wizard
meant there were no config files to alter or firewalls to disable or work around. The configuration wizard can help
simplify and expedite deployment for your admins and deliver a functional Tanzu cluster quickly.

Deploying the workload

Regardless of approach or environment, many developers will likely follow similar steps in this part of the
application modernization process. Tanzu did not complicate workload deployment or create daunting obstacles.

After adding Tanzu to the vSphere environment on Dell EMC PowerEdge R740xd servers, we provided our
developer access to the environment. Our developer installed kubectl, docker, and Tanzu Kubernetes Grid
CLI on an Ubuntu 18.04.5 VM. Then, they connected to the supervisor control plane cluster address and
downloaded the “vSphere for kubectl” plugin. They prepared the VM with the necessary files and connected
to Tanzu K8s. Using YAML files, they deployed a cloud-native WordPress workload to the environment. See the
science behind the report for a walk-through of the developer’s steps.

Figure 3: A screenshot of a successful WordPress installation after deploying Tanzu to the VMware vSphere environment.
Source: Principled Technologies.

Make Kubernetes containers on Dell EMC PowerEdge R740xd servers easier to manage with VMware Tanzu May 2021 (Revised) | 9
 Conclusion
Modernizing applications means being able to meet the challenges of today’s and tomorrow’s disruptive
technologies. For organizations using K8s, part of the work of modernization is developing applications and
microservices in containers but managing and creating single containers can slow the modernization process.
Organizations need future-ready infrastructure that can manage and create container clusters quickly and easily
at scale. In our data center, Dell EMC PowerEdge R740xd servers successfully supported the latest VMware
vSphere update, version 7.0 Update 1, and VMware Tanzu for Kubernetes management. Our administrators
found the solution straightforward to deploy, requiring seven tasks for the Dell EMC PowerEdge R740xd
server cluster.

Because VMware Tanzu centralizes K8s management, the solution increases agility by potentially streamlining
hardware management processes. Based on our research, an organization could get the benefits of centralized
K8s for the cost of $161,830, which includes the per processor license cost and our three-server cluster.

1 VMware, “VMware Tanzu solution brief,” accessed October 15, 2020,

https://d1fto35gcfffzn.cloudfront.net/tanzu/VMware-Tanzu-Solution-Brief-0920.pdf.
2 VMware vSphere Blog, “vSphere 7 – Introduction to Tanzu Kubernetes Grid Clusters,” accessed April 21, 2021,
https://blogs.vmware.com/vsphere/2020/03/vsphere-7-tanzu-kubernetes-clusters.html.

3 On April 19, 2021, we obtained a reseller quote to closely match the system we tested for the purposes of the
cost discussion. The differences between our reseller quote and our tested system were minor and as follows:
• The tested system included H730P mini PERC while the quote included H730P PERC.
• The tested system included a single SAS SSD while the quote included a 480GB SATA SSD.
• The tested system did not include a BOSS card while the quote included a BOSS card.
• The tested system included a quad-port QLogic 57800 10GbE NIC while
the quote included an Intel X550 Quad Port 10GbE NIC.
• The tested system included a dual port Broadcom® P225p 10/25GbE NIC while
the quote included a Broadcom 57414 Dual Port 10/25GbE NIC.

4 VMware Store, “VMware Tanzu Basic - Per CPU,” accessed April 21, 2021,
https://store-us.vmware.com/vmware-tanzu-basic-per-cpu-5471172000.html.

Read the science behind this report at http://facts.pt/j8s8kdy

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Principled Technologies is a registered trademark of Principled Technologies, Inc.

All other product names are the trademarks of their respective owners.
This project was commissioned by Dell EMC. For additional information, review the science behind this report.

Make Kubernetes containers on Dell EMC PowerEdge R740xd servers easier to manage with VMware Tanzu May 2021 (Revised) | 10