With this functionality, you can enable a vSphere cluster to run Kubernetes workloads by configuring it then as a Supervisor. Learn how to use vSphere with Tanzu to transform vSphere into a platform for running Kubernetes workloads natively on the hypervisor layer. You first set up a desired configuration at the cluster level and then, in a single operation, you can apply the configuration to all hosts in the cluster. In vSphere 8.0 you can start using vSphere Configuration Profiles to manage the configuration of the hosts in a cluster collectively. You can also convert a cluster that uses baselines into a cluster that uses vSphere Lifecycle Manager images. With vSphere Lifecycle Manager you can manage ESXi hosts by using images and baselines at the cluster level. Use vSphere Lifecycle Manager as a centralized and simplified lifecycle management mechanism for VMware ESXi hosts. You manage the life cycle of the software and firmware that runs on a DPU device by using vSphere Lifecycle Manager images workflows. DPUs are pre-configured devices that you can use for network acceleration. A DPU device features multiple embedded CPU cores, memory, and a trimmed version of an ESXi hypervisor that runs on the server. VSphere 8.0 introduces vSphere Distributed Services Engine that provides the ability to offload some of the infrastructure functions from a server CPU to a data processing unit (DPU). The vCenter Server appliance contains all the Platform Services Controller services from earlier releases, preserving all previous functionality, including authentication, certificate management, and licensing. You can only deploy or upgrade to vCenter Server using an appliance. Want to know what is in the current release of vSphere? Look at the latest vSphere release notes. vCenter Server is the service through which you manage multiple hosts connected in a network and pool host resources.

ESXi is the virtualization platform where you create and run virtual machines and virtual appliances. The two core components of vSphere are ESXi and vCenter Server.

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