vSphere with Tanzu requires specific networking configuration to enable connectivity to the Supervisor Clusters, vSphere Namespaces, and all objects that run inside the namespaces, such as vSphere Pods, VMs, and Tanzu Kubernetes clusters. As a vSphere administrator, install and configure NSX for vSphere with Tanzu.

This section describes how to configure the Supervisor Cluster networking by deploying a new NSX instance, but the procedures are applicable against an existing NSX deployment as well. This section also provides background to understand what VMware Cloud Foundation SDDC Manager is doing when it sets up the Supervisor Cluster workload domain.

The procedures for installing and configuring NSX, and the configuration settings in this guide are relevant and specific to vSphere with Tanzu. For more information on all available configuration settings for NSX, see the NSX documentation.

Check the VMware Interoperability matrix https://interopmatrix.vmware.com/Interoperability to determine compatibility for vCenter Server and NSX.
Note: Although Product Interoperability Matrix indicates that vCenter Server 7.x is compatible with NSX 4.2, vSphere with Tanzu doesn't support this version of NSX. If you enable vSphere with Tanzu with NSX 4.2, you might encounter problems and unpredictable behavior.

Prerequisites

  • Verify that your environment meets the system requirements for configuring a vSphere cluster as a Supervisor Cluster. For information about requirements, see System Requirements for Setting Up vSphere with Tanzu with NSX.
  • Assign the VMware vSphere 7 Enterprise Plus with Add-on for Kubernetes license to all ESXi hosts that will be part of the Supervisor Cluster.
  • Create storage policies for the placement of control plane VMs, pod ephemeral disks, and container images.
  • Configure shared storage for the cluster. Shared storage is required for vSphere DRS, HA, and storing persistent volumes of containers.
  • Verify that DRS and HA is enabled on the vSphere cluster, and DRS is in the fully automated mode.
  • Verify that you have the Modify cluster-wide configuration privilege on the cluster.