Enabling workload management on a vSphere cluster creates a supervisor cluster. Workload management enables deploying and managing Kubernetes workloads in vSphere. By using workload management, you can leverage both Kubernetes and vSphere functionality. Once vSphere cluster for workload management is configured, namespaces can be created, which provides compute networking and storage resources for Kubernetes applications.

• Network Support: You can select between two networking stacks when configuring workload management such as NSX-T and vCenter server networks. Click Menu > Workload Management > Network Support.
• HA and DRS Support: HA and DRS must be enabled on the vSphere cluster in fully automated mode on the cluster where you set up workload management.
• Storage Policy: Storage policies must be created to specify the datastore placement of the Kubernetes control plane VMs, containers, and images.
• Load Balancer: If you use the vCenter Server network, you must configure a load balancer to support the network connectivity to workloads from client networks and to load-balance traffic between Tanzu Kubernetes clusters. The type of load balancer supported is HA Proxy.
• Tanzu Kubernetes Grid: The content library must be created on the vCenter server system. The VM image that is used for creating the nodes of Tanzu Kubernetes clusters is pulled from that library. This library will contain the latest distributions for Kubernetes and another OS (https://wp- content.vmware.com/v2/latest/lib.json).

To enable workload management:

1. Log in to the vCenter server with administrator credentials.
2. Select Workload Management.

3. Click GET STARTED.
4. Make the following selections:

• vCenter Server and Network: Select a vCenter and then select a networking stack option and click NEXT.
• Select a Cluster: Select the compatible cluster listed in the cluster details and click NEXT.
• Control Plane Size: Allocate capacity for the Kubernetes control plane VMs. The amount of resources that you allocate to the control plane VMs determines the amount of Kubernetes workloads that the cluster can support. Select the resource allocation size and click NEXT.
• Storage: Select the storage policy to be used for datastore placement of Kubernetes control plane VMs and containers. The policy is associated with a datastore on the vSphere environment.
• Load Balancer: The load balancer must be configured to support network connectivity to workloads from client networks and to load-balance traffic between Tanzu Kubernetes clusters. The type of load balancer supported is HA proxy.
• Management Network: The workload management consists of three Kubernetes control plane VMs and the spherelet process on each host, which allows the host to be joined in a Kubernetes cluster. The cluster where the workload management is connected to management network supports traffic vCenter server.
• Workload Network: The network to support traffic to the Kubernetes API and to workload and services.
• TKG configuration: Add the content library to give access to the workloads.
• Review and Confirm: Review all the details before confirming the setup for workload management on the cluster.

5. Click FINISH.

The cluster is available under Menu > Workload Management > Clusters.

Note: As previously mentioned, the workload management consists of three Kubernetes control plane VMs, which allow the host to be joined in the Kubernetes cluster. Once the workload cluster is created, three SupervisorControlPlaneVMs are created. These VMs are actually Kubernetes nodes that interact with the vSphere infrastructure in order to provide the services and capabilities for vSphere with Tanzu.