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 Supervisors, DevOps engineers can use the service APIs to create instances on Supervisors in their user namespaces. These instances can then be consumed in vSphere Pods and Tanzu Kubernetes Grid clusters.

Learn more about the supported Supervisor Services and how to download their service YAML files at http://vmware.com/go/supervisor-service.

In the vSphere 8.0 release, only Supervisors configured with the NSX networking stack support Supervisor Services. Starting with the vSphere 8 Update 1 release, Supervisor Services are available on Supervisors deployed with both types of networking, the NSX or VDS.

Note: When installed on Supervisors, Supervisor Services are deployed as a set of vSphere Pods. These vSphere Pods are used only by the respective Supervisor Services they are part of. Deploying vSphere Pods for generic use is supported only on Supervisors configured with the NSX networking stack.
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 Supervisors, as well as perform version control. A Supervisor Service can have multiple versions that you can install on Supervisors as only one version at a time can run on a Supervisor.
Table 1. Supervisor Service States
State Service Version Entire Service
Active The service version is ready to be installed on Supervisors version. At least one service version is in Active state.
Deactivated The service version cannot be installed on Supervisors. It can continue running on any Supervisors where it is installed, but you cannot install a Deactivated version on new Supervisors. When and entire Supervisor Service is Deactivated, all of it's versions are also Deactivated and you cannot install any of them on Supervisors 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:

  • Adding 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. After the service is registered with vCenter Server, its state is Active, which means that you can install that service on Supervisors.
  • Adding 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 Supervisors.
  • Installing a Supervisor Service on Supervisors. When you install a service on a Supervisor, 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 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.
  • Upgrading a Supervisor Service. You can upgrade a service that is installed on a Supervisor by first adding a new service version to vCenter Server and then installing the new version on the Supervisor. During the service upgrade, the YAML file of the new version is applied to the Supervisor. 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.
  • Uninstalling a Supervisor Service version. Uninstalling a service version from a Supervisor 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.
  • Deleting a Supervisor Service version. To delete a service version, first you must Deactivate that version and uninstall it from the Supervisors where it runs. Then you can delete the service version from vCenter Server.
  • Deleting an entire Supervisor Service. To delete entire service, you must deactivate all of its versions, then uninstall these versions from Supervisors, and finally delete all the service versions.