Category: TKGI to OpenShift
Migrating a TKGI estate onto Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 4, assessment through cutover and decommission.
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OpenShift Projects, Quotas and MachineSet Scaling (TKGI to OpenShift Series, Part 14)
TKGI gave every team a cluster and a plan. OpenShift gives them a Project, a quota and a share of one node pool. Here is the runbook that makes that swap, with the project request template, the vSphere MachineSet, the autoscaler pair and the quota rejection that took out a whole migration wave.
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Cluster Networking, OVN-Kubernetes, Routes and Load Balancing (TKGI to OpenShift Series, Part 13)
On TKGI the NSX Container Plugin handed every LoadBalancer service a virtual server. OpenShift on vSphere does not. This Part wires Routes, ingress shards, MetalLB address pools and EgressIP on the cluster Part 12 installed.
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Installing OpenShift 4 on vSphere, IPI and UPI Compared (TKGI to OpenShift Series, Part 12)
IPI or UPI for the first OpenShift cluster beside your TKGI estate. A working install-config for vSphere, the three DNS records that decide the install, and the bootstrap failure that costs most teams two attempts.
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Target Reference Architecture, OpenShift 4 on vSphere (TKGI to OpenShift Series, Part 11)
A concrete OpenShift 4 target for our reference TKGI estate: two clusters instead of three, three vSphere failure domains declared on day zero, and a mapping table from every TKGI component to whatever replaces it.
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Identity, RBAC and Multi-Tenancy, TKGI Plans to OpenShift Projects (TKGI to OpenShift Series, Part 10)
TKGI put tenancy at the cluster boundary and OpenShift puts it at the Project. This part maps UAA scopes, LDAP groups and Plans onto OpenShift RBAC, project templates and ClusterResourceQuota, including the group sync step that silently breaks every binding if you skip it.
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Storage and Data Assessment, vSphere CSI and Persistent Volumes (TKGI to OpenShift Series, Part 9)
A working method for inventorying persistent volumes on a TKGI estate, mapping storage classes onto OpenShift 4 vSphere CSI, and sizing restore windows before wave one starts. Includes the RWX trap and the storage class rename that leaves PVCs Pending forever.
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Networking Assessment, NSX-T and NCP to OVN-Kubernetes (TKGI to OpenShift Series, Part 8)
NCP gave every TKGI namespace its own NSX-T segment, T1 router and SNAT IP, while OVN-Kubernetes gives you a flat overlay and a node IP. Here is the full capability mapping, and why egress identity is the rebuild that actually costs you.
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Security Context Constraints and Pod Admission, the Biggest Portability Gap (TKGI to OpenShift Series, Part 7)
Security Context Constraints reject workloads that ran for years on TKGI, and no migration tool fixes that for you. Field level mapping, five real rejection errors, and the remediation paths ranked by cost.
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Application Assessment and Migration Waves for OpenShift (TKGI to OpenShift Series, Part 6)
Scoring 47 TKGI namespaces on six signals turns a flat inventory into four migration waves. Here is the rubric, the wave rules, and why business criticality is the wrong sort key.
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Inventorying the TKGI Estate (TKGI to OpenShift Series, Part 5)
Before you design an OpenShift target you need an honest picture of what TKGI is actually running. Here is the read only discovery sweep I run across a three cluster estate, and the four things it turns up that nobody expected.
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Business Case, Subscription Costs and a Phased Timeline (TKGI to OpenShift Series, Part 4)
Sizing OpenShift core pair subscriptions for a three cluster TKGI estate, the ten month double run window that dominates the budget, and a twelve month phased plan against the October 2027 clock.
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Why This Is a Migration, Not an Upgrade (TKGI to OpenShift Series, Part 3)
No tool converts a TKGI cluster into an OpenShift cluster. Here is the carry over ledger for a real estate, and what calling this an upgrade costs you in capacity, schedule and credibility.
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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.
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