Supervisor Services are vSphere certified Kubernetes operators that deliver Infrastructure-as-a-Service components and tightly-integrated Independent Software Vendor services to developers. You can install and manage Supervisor Services on the vSphere with Tanzu environment so that to make them available for use with Kubernetes workloads.

When Supervisor Services are installed on Supervisor Clusters, DevOps engineers can consume them in different ways:

  • Shared Supervisor Services directly provide functionality to workloads running in TKG clusters, vSphere Pods, or VMs. .
  • Supervisor Services that include an operator, such as MinIO, typically provide API or UI interfaces, which DevOps engineers can use to create and manage instances of the service in a vSphere Namespace through CRDs. For example, to create a MiniIO bucket, you use a CRD to create the bucket in a vSphere Namespace.

Learn more about the supported Supervisor Services and how to download their service YAML files at https://vsphere-tmm.github.io/Supervisor-Services/.

Note: In the vSphere 7.x release, only Supervisor Clusters configured with the NSX networking stack support Supervisor Services.
You manage Supervisor Services in the vSphere Services platform from the vSphere Client. By using the platform, you can manage the life cycle of Supervisor Services, install them on Supervisor Clusters, as well as perform version control. A Supervisor Service can have multiple versions that you can install on Supervisor Clusters as only one version at a time can run on a Supervisor Cluster.
Table 1. Supervisor Service States
State Service Version Entire Service
Active The service version is ready to be installed on Supervisor Clusters version. At least one service version is in Active state.
Deactivated The service version cannot be installed on Supervisor Clusters. It can continue running on any Supervisor Clusters where it is installed, but you cannot install a Deactivated version on new Supervisor Clusters. When and entire Supervisor Service is Deactivated, all of it's versions are also Deactivated and you cannot install any of them on Supervisor Clusters or add new service versions until you reactivate the service.

Supervisor Services Life Cycle Management Operations

Managing the life cycle of a Supervisor Service includes the following operations:

Operation Description
Add a new Supervisor Service to vCenter Server When you add a new service to vCenter Server, the service and all information about it is registered with vCenter Server. The service is not yet installed on any Supervisor Cluster. After the service is registered with vCenter Server, its state is Active, which means that you can install that service on Supervisor Clusters.
Add a new Supervisor Service version to vCenter Server Once, you have added a Supervisor Service to vCenter Server, you can add new versions of that service. After the new service version is registered with vCenter Server it becomes in Active state and you can install the version on Supervisor Clusters
Install a Supervisor Service on Supervisor Clusters When you install a service on a Supervisor Cluster, the service YAML file is applied on the cluster, and all the pods and necessary resources are created for the service to operate. Each service you install on a Supervisor Cluster has a dedicated namespace where you can manage the service resources. Supervisor Services might also have a UI plug-in for vCenter Server, where you can manage the service configuration.
Upgrade a Supervisor Service You can upgrade a service that is installed on a Supervisor Cluster by first adding a new service version to vCenter Server and then installing the new version on the Supervisor Cluster. During the service upgrade, the YAML file of the new version is applied to the Supervisor Cluster. Any resources that are specified in the previous service version that are not required by the new version will be deleted. For example, if version 1 specifies pod A and version 2 specifies pod B, after the upgrade to version 2 a new pod B is created and pod A is deleted. No currently running workloads are impacted during the process.
Uninstall a Supervisor Service version Uninstalling a service version from a Supervisor Cluster leads to all of the services resources being removed from the cluster including the service namespace. Application instances of the service in Kubernetes workloads will continue to run.
Delete a Supervisor Service version To delete a service version, first you must Deactivate that version and uninstall it from the Supervisor Clusters where it runs. Then you can delete the service version from vCenter Server
Delete an entire Supervisor Service To delete entire service, you must deactivate all of its versions, then uninstall these versions from Supervisor Clusters, and finally delete all the service versions.