An area on a Supervisor, with caps on CPU, memory, storage and Kubernetes objects, in which VMs, vSphere Pods, VKS clusters and Supervisor Services run. VCF Automation creates them within a project, drawing on the organisation's region quota.
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Terms in this definition
- CPU
The processor that runs a VM's workload (central processing unit); while B-series VMs run under their baseline, they accumulate CPU credits.
- General-purpose v1
The older storage account kind (
Storage), which lacks access tiers, Archive and premium file shares and retires on 13 October 2026. Converting to ZRS requires first upgrading to GPv2, a one-way change. - Virtual machines
Infrastructure-as-a-service compute giving complete control of the operating system, making it a fit for lift-and-shift moves and for software relying on OS-level pieces like COM.
- vSphere
VMware's platform for virtualisation, made up of vCenter and ESX hosts, supplying compute for VCF clusters.
- VKS
Supervisor service, previously the Tanzu Kubernetes Grid Service, that deploys and looks after VMware-supported upstream Kubernetes clusters inside vSphere Namespaces.
- Supervisor Services
Operators for Kubernetes, certified by VMware for vSphere, that run on the Supervisor and give DevOps teams IaaS components and partner offerings, such as Velero, MinIO, Harbor or VKS, to use inside their namespaces.
- VCF Automation
Self-service platform in VCF for provisioning VM, Kubernetes and AI workloads. Providers manage regions and tenants in one portal, while tenants handle projects and consumption in theirs.
- Foundry project
A container beneath a Foundry resource that keeps one team's agents, data, files, evaluations and project connections separate. Model deployments and resource-level connections are shared from the parent, and governance is not configured at this level.
Related terms
- namespace class
Required to create a vSphere Namespace in VCF Automation, this template fixes its CPU and memory reservations and limits, plus which VM classes, storage classes and content libraries it gets.
- VM class
Template on a vSphere Supervisor setting reservations, memory and CPU for VKS cluster nodes and VMs. DevOps users can only pick it once it has been added to their vSphere Namespace.