Cloud Director Prerequisites

Before continuing to install DKP on VMware Cloud Director(VCD), verify that your VMware vSphere Client environment is running vSphere Client version v6.7.x with Update 3 or later version with ESXi. You must be able to reach the vSphere API endpoint from where the Konvoy command line interface (CLI) runs. See the listed Prerequisites for all the specific details below.

Prerequisites Related to VMware Cloud Director

• Ensure you have meet VMware Cloud Director requirements: https://docs.vmware.com/en/VMware-Cloud-Director/10.4/rn/vmware-cloud-director-104-release-notes/index.html

• Download and install VMware Cloud Director: Download VMware Cloud Director

• Considerations regarding CPU and Memory during configuration:

  • For CPU and Memory, the VCD Provider creates the appropriate VM Sizing Policies.

  • The Provider (or tenant user with proper permissions) references these VM Sizing Policies when creating the cluster, using the --control-plane-sizing-policy and --worker-sizing-policy flags.

  • See https://docs.vmware.com/en/VMware-Cloud-Director/10.4/VMware-Cloud-Director-Service-Provider-Admin-Portal-Guide/GUID-73C48A9C-79AF-402C-9746-4C81CAC2B35A.html regarding parameters like vCPU Speed or CPU Reservation Guarantee that require consideration in VM Sizing Policy. For example, vCPU minimum speed is recommended to be at least 3 GHz.

• Considerations for Storage during configuration:

  • For storage, follow Create a Base OS image in vSphere when creating the KIB base image. In VCD, the base image determines the minimum storage available for the VM.

Values required to create VM Sizing Policies and other fields are left to the Provider’s discretion. For more information about VCD parameters that can affect performance, refer to VMware Documentation: https://docs.vmware.com/en/VMware-Cloud-Director/10.4/VMware-Cloud-Director-Service-Provider-Admin-Portal-Guide/GUID-73C48A9C-79AF-402C-9746-4C81CAC2B35A.html

Prerequisites for DKP

Before beginning a DKP installation, verify that you have:

• An x86_64-based Linux or macOS machine with a supported version of the operating system to execute the commands needed to run DKP and to create a cluster.

• Download the dkp binary for Linux or macOS with KIB image bundle. To check which version of DKP you installed for compatibility reasons, run the dkp version -h command (dkp version).

• A Container engine/runtime installed is required to install DKP:

  • Version Docker® container engine version 18.09.2 or higher installed for Linux or MacOS - On macOS, Docker runs in a virtual machine which needs configured with at least 8 GB of memory.

  • Version 4.0 of Podman or higher for Linux. Host requirements found here: Host Requirements

• kubectl for interacting with the running cluster

• Valid VMware Cloud Director version 10.4.x or later account as mentioned in Cloud Director prerequisites

• You as the Service Provider (SP) have created the appropriate images in vSphere vCenter available for upload to the tenant organization’s catalog:

  1. Use konvoy-image build vsphere to create one or more OVA’s

  2. Create a vApp Template from the OVA

  3. Before the SP creates a cluster in a VCD tenant, make this vApp Template available to that tenant

• You must be able to reach the VCD API endpoint from where the DKP CLI runs

Machine Specifications

Control plane nodes

You must have at least three control plane nodes. Each control plane node should have at least:

• 4 cores

• 16 GiB memory

• Approximately 80 GiB of free space for the volume used for /var/lib/kubelet and /var/lib/containerd.

• Disk usage must be below 85% on the root volume.

DKP on VCD defaults to deploying an n2-standard-4 instance with an 80GiB root volume for control plane nodes, which meets the above requirements.

Worker nodes

You must have at least four worker nodes. The specific number of worker nodes required for your environment can vary depending on the cluster workload and size of the nodes. Each worker node should have at least:

• 8 cores

• 32 GiB memory

• Around 80 GiB of free space for the volume used for /var/lib/kubelet and /var/lib/containerd.

• Disk usage must be below 85% on the root volume.

DKP on VCD defaults to deploying a n2-standard-8 instance with an 80GiB root volume for worker nodes, which meets the above requirements.

More Information:

Next Step

Cloud Director Configure the Organization