Components and installation profiles for Tanzu Application Platform

This topic lists the components you can install with Tanzu Application Platform (commonly known as TAP). You can install components as individual packages or you can install them using a profile containing a predefined group of packages.

Tanzu Application Platform components

• API Auto Registration

  When users deploy a workload that exposes an API, they want that API to automatically show in Tanzu Developer Portal without requiring any added manual steps.

  API Auto Registration is an automated workflow that can use a supply chain to create and manage a Kubernetes Custom Resource (CR) of type APIDescriptor. A Kubernetes controller reconciles the CR and updates the API entity in Tanzu Developer Portal to achieve automated API registration from workloads. You can also use API Auto Registration without supply chains by directly applying an APIDescriptor CR to the cluster.

• API portal

  API portal for VMware Tanzu enables API consumers to find APIs they can use in their own applications.

  Consumers can view detailed API documentation and try out an API to see if it meets their needs. API portal assembles its dashboard and detailed API documentation views by ingesting OpenAPI documentation from the source URLs. An API portal operator can add any number of OpenAPI source URLs to appear in a single instance.

• Application Accelerator

  The Application Accelerator component helps app developers and app operators create application accelerators.

  Accelerators are templates that codify best practices and ensure that important configurations and structures are in place. Developers can bootstrap their applications and get started with feature development right away.

  Application operators can create custom accelerators that reflect their desired architectures and configurations and enable fleets of developers to use them. This helps ease operator concerns about whether developers are implementing their best practices.

• Application Configuration Service

  Application Configuration Service provides a Kubernetes-native experience to enable the runtime configuration of existing Spring applications that were previously leveraged by using Spring Cloud Config Server.

  Application Configuration Service is compatible with the existing Git repository configuration management approach. It filters runtime configuration for any application by using slices that produce secrets.

• Application Live View

  Application Live View is a lightweight insight and troubleshooting tool that helps application developers and application operators look inside running applications.

  It is based on the concept of Spring Boot Actuators. The application provides information from inside the running processes by using endpoints (in our case, HTTP endpoints). Application Live View uses those endpoints to get the data from the application and to interact with it.

• Application Single Sign-On

  Application Single Sign-On enables application users to sign in to their identity provider once and be authorized and identified to access any Kubernetes-deployed workload. It is a secure and straightforward approach for developers and operators to manage access across all workloads in the enterprise.

• Aria Operations for Applications (AOA) dashboard for Tanzu Application Platform (Beta)

  This dashboard, powered by Aria Operations for Applications (formerly Tanzu Observability), helps platform engineers monitor the health of a given cluster by showing whether the deployed Tanzu Application Platform components are behaving as expected.

• AWS Services

  AWS Services provides an integration with Amazon Web Services (AWS) for Tanzu Application Platform.

  Through integration with Crossplane and Services Toolkit, you can offer services from AWS to apps teams to consume with only minimal setup and configuration required from ops teams. This makes it quick and easy to get started working with these services on Tanzu Application Platform.

• Bitnami Services

  Bitnami Services provides a set of services for Tanzu Application Platform backed by corresponding Bitnami Helm Charts. Through integration with Crossplane and Services Toolkit, these Bitnami Services are immediately ready for apps teams to consume, with no additional setup or configuration required from ops teams. This makes it incredibly quick and easy to get started working with services on Tanzu Application Platform.

• Cartographer Conventions

  Use Cartographer Conventions to ensure infrastructure uniformity across workloads deployed on the cluster. Cartographer Conventions provide a way to control how applications should be deployed on Kubernetes using a convention. Use Cartographer Conventions to apply the runtime best practices, policies, and conventions of your organization to workloads as they are created on the platform.

• cert-manager

  cert-manager adds certificates and certificate issuers as resource types to Kubernetes clusters. It also helps you to obtain, renew, and use those certificates. For more information about cert-manager, see the cert-manager documentation.

• Cloud Native Runtimes

  Cloud Native Runtimes for Tanzu is a serverless application runtime for Kubernetes that is based on Knative and runs on a single Kubernetes cluster. For information about Knative, see the Knative documentation.

• Contour

  Contour is an ingress controller for Kubernetes that supports dynamic configuration updates and multi-team ingress delegation. It provides the control plane for the Envoy edge and service proxy. For more information about Contour, see the Contour documentation.

• Default roles for Tanzu Application Platform

  This package includes five default roles for users, including app-editor, app-viewer, app-operator, and service accounts including workload and deliverable. These roles are available to help operators limit permissions a user or service account requires on a cluster that runs Tanzu Application Platform. They are built by using aggregated cluster roles in Kubernetes role-based access control (RBAC). Default roles only apply to a user interacting with the cluster by using kubectl and Tanzu CLI.

• Crossplane

  Crossplane is an open source, Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF) project built on the foundation of Kubernetes. Tanzu Application Platform uses Crossplane to power a number of capabilities, such as dynamic provisioning of services instances with Services Toolkit and the Bitnami Services.

• Developer Conventions

  Developer conventions configure workloads to prepare them for inner loop development.

  It’s meant to be a “deploy and forget” component for developers. After it is installed on the cluster with the Tanzu Package CLI, developers do not need to directly interact with it. Developers instead interact with the Tanzu Developer Tools for VSCode IDE Extension or Tanzu CLI Apps plug-in, which rely on the Developer Conventions to edit the workload to enable inner loop capabilities.

• External Secrets Operator

  The External Secrets Operator is a Kubernetes operator that integrates with external secret management systems, for example, Google Secrets Manager and Hashicorp Vault. It reads information from external APIs and automatically injects the values into a Kubernetes secret. Tanzu Application Platform uses the External Secrets Operator to simplify Kubernetes secret life cycle management.

• Flux CD Source Controller

  The main role of this source management component is to provide a common interface for artifact acquisition.

• Local Source Proxy

  Local Source Proxy is a secure and convenient means for you to interact with external registries without providing a lot of registry details.

  With Local Source Proxy, developers can interact with external registries without needing to know registry specifics, such as endpoints, credentials, and certificates. This eliminates the burden of platform and app operators having to distribute registry credentials to developer workstations.

  Developers can also seamlessly deploy their applications without managing registry credentials on their local machines or keeping track of where their local source is uploaded.

• Namespace Provisioner

  Namespace Provisioner provides an easy, secure, automated way for Platform Operators to provision namespaces with the resources and proper namespace-level privileges needed for developer workloads to function as intended.

• Service Bindings

  Service Bindings create a Kubernetes-wide specification for communicating service secrets to workloads in a consistent way.

• Service Registry

  Service Registry for VMware Tanzu provides on-demand Eureka servers for your Tanzu Application Platform clusters. With Service Registry, you can create Eureka servers in your namespaces and bind Spring Boot workloads to them.

• Services Toolkit

  Services Toolkit is responsible for backing many of the most exciting and powerful capabilities for services in Tanzu Application Platform. From the integration of an extensive list of cloud-based and on-prem services, through to the offering and discovery of those services, and finally to the claiming and binding of service instances to application workloads, Services Toolkit has the tools you need to make working with services on Tanzu Application Platform simple, easy, and effective.

• Source Controller

  Tanzu Source Controller provides a standard interface for artifact acquisition and extends the function of Flux CD Source Controller. Tanzu Source Controller supports the following two resource types:

  • ImageRepository (deprecated)
  • MavenArtifact

• Spring Boot conventions

  The Spring Boot convention server has a bundle of smaller conventions applied to any Spring Boot application that is submitted to the supply chain in which the convention controller is configured.

• Spring Cloud Gateway

  Spring Cloud Gateway for Kubernetes is an API gateway solution based on the open-source Spring Cloud Gateway project. It provides a simple means to route internal or external API requests to application services that expose APIs.

• Supply Chain Choreographer

  Supply Chain Choreographer is based on open-source Cartographer. It enables app operators to create preapproved paths to production by integrating Kubernetes resources with the elements of their existing toolchains, such as Jenkins.

  Each pre-approved supply chain creates a paved road to production. It orchestrates supply chain resources, namely test, build, scan, and deploy. Enabling developers to focus on delivering value to their users. Pre-approved supply chains also assure application operators that all code in production has passed through the steps of an approved workflow.

  Note: Tanzu Supply Chain replaces Supply Chain Choreographer, but is still in beta testing.

• Supply Chain Security Tools - Policy Controller

  Supply Chain Security Tools (SCST) - Policy is an admission controller that allows a cluster operator to specify policies to verify image container signatures before admitting them to a cluster. It works with cosign signature format and allows for fine-tuned configuration of policies based on image source patterns.

• Supply Chain Security Tools - Scan

  With Supply Chain Security Tools (SCST) - Scan, you can build and deploy secure trusted software that complies with their corporate security requirements.

  To enable this, Supply Chain Security Tools - Scan provides scanning and gate keeping capabilities that Application and DevSecOps teams can incorporate earlier in their path to production. This is an established industry best practice for reducing security risk and ensuring more efficient remediation.

• Supply Chain Security Tools - Store

  Supply Chain Security Tools (SCST) - Store saves software bills of materials (SBoMs) to a database and enables you to query for image, source, package, and vulnerability relationships. It integrates with SCST - Scan to automatically store the resulting source and image vulnerability reports.

• Tanzu Developer Portal

  Tanzu Developer Portal lets your developers view your organization’s running applications and services. It provides a central location for viewing dependencies, relationships, technical documentation, and even service status. Tanzu Developer Portal is built from the Cloud Native Computing Foundation’s project Backstage.

• Tanzu Application Platform Telemetry

  Tanzu Application Platform Telemetry is a set of objects that collect data about the use of Tanzu Application Platform and send it back to VMware for product improvements. A benefit of remaining enrolled in telemetry and identifying your company during Tanzu Application Platform installation is that VMware can provide your organization with use reports about Tanzu Application Platform. For information about enrolling in telemetry reports, see Tanzu Application Platform usage reports.

  Note

  You can opt out of telemetry collection by following the instructions in Opting out of telemetry collection.

• Tanzu Build Service

  Tanzu Build Service uses the open-source Cloud Native Build packs project to turn application source code into container images.

  Tanzu Build Service executes reproducible builds that align with modern container standards and keeps images up to date. It does so by leveraging Kubernetes infrastructure with kpack, a Cloud Native Build packs Platform, to orchestrate the image life cycle.

  The kpack CLI tool, kp, can aid in managing kpack resources. Build Service helps you develop and automate containerized software workflows securely and at scale.

• Tanzu Buildpacks

  Tanzu Buildpacks provide framework and runtime support for applications. Buildpacks typically examine your applications to work out what dependencies to download and how to configure the apps to communicate with bound services.

  Tanzu Buildpacks use open-source Paketo Buildpacks to allow Tanzu Application Platform users to turn their application source code into container images. From Tanzu Application Platform v1.6, builders, stacks, and buildpacks are packaged separately from Tanzu Build Service, but are included in the same Tanzu Application Platform profiles as Tanzu Build Service. All buildpacks follow the package name format *.buildpacks.tanzu.vmware.com.

• Tanzu Supply Chain (beta)

  Tanzu Supply Chain is a tool that provides a golden path to production for your teams. Tanzu Supply Chain replaces the supply-chain solution Supply Chain Choreographer, which is based on Cartographer.

• Tanzu Developer Tools for IntelliJ

  Tanzu Developer Tools for IntelliJ is the official VMware Tanzu IDE extension for IntelliJ IDEA to help you develop code by using Tanzu Application Platform. This extension enables you to rapidly iterate on your workloads on supported Kubernetes clusters that have Tanzu Application Platform installed.

• Tanzu Developer Tools for Visual Studio

  Tanzu Developer Tools for Visual Studio is the official VMware Tanzu IDE extension for Visual Studio to help you develop code by using Tanzu Application Platform. The Visual Studio extension enables live updates of your application while it runs on the cluster and lets you debug your application directly on the cluster.

• Tanzu Developer Tools for Visual Studio Code

  Tanzu Developer Tools for VS Code is the official VMware Tanzu IDE extension for VS Code to help you develop code by using Tanzu Application Platform. The VS Code extension enables live updates of your application while it runs on the cluster and lets you debug your application directly on the cluster.

• Tanzu Application Platform GUI Client

  Tanzu Application Platform GUI Client is a package with RBAC resources required by Tanzu Developer Portal on clusters with Build, Run and Iterate profiles. It also contains Tanzu Mission Control specific resources. You cannot install this package on the same cluster as Tanzu Developer Portal.

  This package is only used while installing Tanzu Application Platform using Tanzu Mission Control.

• Tekton Pipelines

  Tekton is a powerful and flexible open-source framework for creating CI/CD systems, enabling developers to build, test, and deploy across cloud providers and on-premise systems.

Installation profiles in Tanzu Application Platform v1.8

You can deploy Tanzu Application Platform through predefined profiles, each containing various packages, or you can install the packages individually. The profiles allow Tanzu Application Platform to scale across an organization’s multicluster, multi-cloud, or hybrid cloud infrastructure. These profiles are not meant to cover all use cases, but serve as a starting point to allow for further customization.

The following profiles are available in Tanzu Application Platform:

• Full (full): Contains nearly all Tanzu Application Platform packages. For the exceptions to the full profile, see the packages with a check mark in the Not in a profile column in the table later in this section.

• Iterate (iterate): Intended for iterative application development.

• Build (build): Intended for the transformation of source revisions to workload revisions. Specifically, hosting workloads and SupplyChains.

• Run (run): Intended for the transformation of workload revisions to running pods. Specifically, hosting deliveries and deliverables.

• View (view): Intended for instances of applications related to centralized developer experiences. Specifically, Tanzu Developer Portal and Metadata Store.

• Authoring (authoring): Includes everything in the Iterate profile and has extra packages for installing Tanzu Supply Chain (beta).

The following tables list the packages contained in each profile. Packages not included in any profile are available to install as individual packages only. See the component documentation for the package for installation instructions. For a diagram showing the packages contained in each profile, see Overview of multicluster Tanzu Application Platform.

Packages: A to C

Package Name	Full	Iterate	Build	Run	View	Authoring	Not in a profile
API Auto Registration	✓	✓		✓		✓
API portal	✓				✓
Application Accelerator	✓				✓
Application Configuration Service							✓
Application Live View APIServer	✓	✓		✓		✓
Application Live View back end	✓				✓
Application Live View connector	✓	✓		✓		✓
Application Live View conventions	✓	✓	✓			✓
Application Single Sign-On	✓	✓		✓		✓
AOA dashboard							✓
Artifact Metadata Repository Observer	✓		✓	✓
AWS Services							✓
Bitnami Services	✓	✓		✓		✓
Carbon Black Scanner for SCST - Scan (beta)							✓
cert-manager	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓
Cloud Native Runtimes	✓	✓		✓		✓
Contour	✓	✓		✓	✓	✓
Crossplane	✓	✓		✓		✓

Packages: D to R

Package Name	Full	Iterate	Build	Run	View	Authoring	Not in a profile
Default Roles	✓	✓	✓	✓		✓
Developer Conventions	✓	✓				✓
External Secrets Operator							✓
Flux Source Controller	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓
Grype Scanner for SCST - Scan							✓
Local Source Proxy	✓	✓				✓
Namespace Provisioner	✓	✓	✓	✓		✓
Out of the Box Delivery - Basic	✓	✓		✓		✓
Out of the Box Supply Chain - Basic	✓	✓	✓			✓
Out of the Box Supply Chain - Testing	✓	✓	✓			✓
Out of the Box Supply Chain - Testing and Scanning	✓		✓
Out of the Box Templates	✓	✓	✓	✓		✓

Packages: S to Z

Package Name	Full	Iterate	Build	Run	View	Authoring	Not in a profile
Service Bindings	✓	✓		✓		✓
Service Registry							✓
Services Toolkit	✓	✓		✓		✓
Source Controller	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓
Snyk Scanner for SCST - Scan (beta)							✓
Spring Boot conventions	✓	✓	✓			✓
Spring Cloud Gateway							✓
Supply Chain Choreographer	✓	✓	✓	✓		✓
SCST - Policy Controller	✓	✓		✓		✓
SCST - Scan	✓		✓
SCST - Scan 2.0	✓		✓
SCST - Store	✓				✓
Tanzu Build Packs	✓	✓	✓			✓
Tanzu Build Service	✓	✓	✓			✓
Tanzu Developer Portal	✓				✓
Tanzu Supply Chain (beta)						✓
Tekton Pipelines	✓	✓	✓			✓
Telemetry	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓

Note

You can only install one supply chain at any given time. For information about switching supply chains, see Add testing and scanning to your application.

Language and framework support in Tanzu Application Platform

The following table shows the languages and frameworks supported by Tanzu Application Platform components.

Language or Framework	Tanzu Build Service	Runtime Conventions	Tanzu Developer Tooling	Application Live View	Extended Scanning Coverage using Buildpack SBOMs
Java	✓	✓	✓		✓
Spring Boot	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓
.NET Core	✓		✓	✓	✓
Steeltoe	✓		✓	✓
NodeJS	✓				✓
Python	✓				✓
golang	✓				✓
PHP	✓				✓
Ruby	✓				✓

Notes:

• Tanzu Developer Tooling: This refers to the developer conventions that enable debugging and Live Update function in the inner loop.

• Extended Scanning Coverage: When building container images with the Tanzu Build Service, the Cloud Native Build Packs used in the build process for the specified languages produce a Software Bill of Materials (SBOM). Some scan engines support the enhanced ability to use this SBOM as a source for the scan. Out of the Box Supply Chain - Testing and Scanning leverages Anchore’s Grype for the image scan, which suppports this capability. In addition, users have the ability to leverage Carbon Black Container image scans, which also supports this enhanced scan coverage.

• Spring Boot: You must use a supported version of Spring Boot to ensure compatibility with Tanzu Application Platform components. For more information, see Spring Boot Support.

Installing Tanzu Application Platform

For more information about installing Tanzu Application Platform, see Installing Tanzu Application Platform.