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JOURNAL OF Intelligent Infrastructure Insights for the Modern Datacenter Era · by Dr Pranay Jha Explore the Guides

TKGI to VKS Migration on VCF 9, Complete Guide

A working path from Tanzu Kubernetes Grid Integrated (TKGI) to the vSphere Kubernetes Service (VKS) on VMware Cloud Foundation 9, in 26 parts, for the platform engineer, Kubernetes operator or VMware admin who runs TKGI today and has to land it on VCF 9. It treats the move as what it is, a migration rather than an in-place upgrade: you stand up VKS on the vSphere Supervisor beside the old platform, move workloads across in waves with Velero, cut traffic over, then decommission TKGI and Ops Manager. Strategy and assessment come first, then hands-on runbooks with real commands and YAML. It leans on the VKS, VCF 9, NSX and VCF Automation series for deep component mechanics rather than repeating them. Browse them all on the guides hub.

Complete · all 26 parts published
Phase 1 · The Case for Moving
  1. 01What VKS Is, and Why TKGI Is Winding Down
  2. 02TKGI and VKS Architecture Compared, Component by Component
  3. 03Why This Is a Migration, Not an Upgrade
  4. 04Business Case, Lifecycle Drivers and a Phased Timeline
Phase 2 · Assess and Design
  1. 05Inventorying the TKGI Estate
  2. 06Application Assessment and Migration Waves
  3. 07Networking Assessment, NSX-T vs NSX VPC on VCF 9
  4. 08Storage and Data Assessment, vSphere CSI and Persistent Volumes
  5. 09Identity, RBAC and Secrets Assessment
  6. 10Multi-Tenancy and Self-Service, TKGI Plans to vSphere Namespaces
  7. 11Target Reference Architecture, VKS on VCF 9
Phase 3 · Stand Up the Platform
  1. 12Preparing VCF 9 and Enabling the vSphere Supervisor
  2. 13Supervisor Networking, NSX VPCs and Load Balancing Choices
  3. 14First VKS Cluster, Namespaces, Cluster Classes and Node Pools
  4. 15Identity, RBAC and Harbor on VKS
  5. 16Network Policy and Microsegmentation, NSX-T DFW to Antrea
Phase 4 · Migrate Workloads
  1. 17Velero on Source and Target, the Migration Toolchain
  2. 18Migrating a Stateless Application End to End
  3. 19Migrating a Stateful Application with Persistent Volumes
  4. 20Ingress, Load Balancing and DNS Cutover
  5. 21Secrets, Config and CI/CD Pipeline Migration
Phase 5 · Pilot, Cut Over and Operate
  1. 22Pilot Migration, One Non-Prod Cluster End to End
  2. 23Production Cutover, Traffic Shift, Validation and Rollback
  3. 24Day-2 on VKS, Lifecycle, Upgrades and Scaling vs BOSH
  4. 25Observability, Backup and Disaster Recovery on VKS
Phase 6 · Land It
  1. 26Decommissioning TKGI and Ops Manager, and What Comes Next

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About the Author

Dr Pranay Jha

Dr. Pranay Jha is a Cloud and AI Consultant with 18+ years of experience in hybrid cloud, virtualization, and enterprise infrastructure transformation. He specializes in VMware technologies, multi-cloud strategy, and Generative AI solutions. He holds a PhD in Computer Applications with research focused on Cloud and AI, has published multiple research papers, and has been a VMware vExpert since 2016 and a VMUG Community Leader.