Sneak Peek into the Next Major Release for VMware Tanzu Application Service

August 30, 2022 Nick Kuhn

VMware Tanzu Application Service is a modern application platform for enterprises that want to continuously deliver and run microservices across clouds. Tanzu Application Service provides application development teams an automated path to production for custom code, and a secure, highly available runtime that scales to support the most demanding operations teams.

At VMware Explore, we are pre-announcing new capabilities that will be released in Tanzu Application Service 3.0 that continue to demonstrate our relentless effort to enhance the overall experience for developers and operators on the platform. 

Here’s a sneak peek at some of the new features that are expected to be available in October 2022.

Developer-focused features

  • Apps Manager search improvements – Developers and operators will be able to search for specific users within Apps Manager. This should dramatically reduce the time spent searching for specific user accounts in large organizational structures.
  • Shared routes between spaces – In an effort to enable zero downtime application migrations between spaces, developers will now be able to create shared spaces that are visible across Cloud Foundry spaces. Applications can be redeployed and attached to the shared route to migrate an application from one space to another in the event of organizational or team responsibility change. 
  • Apple M1 architecture support for CLI – The Cloud Foundry CLI has been updated to support the native M1 architecture. This can help developers minimize impact to their developer experience as they move to new workstations.
  • Step-up autoscaling in Apps Manager – In Tanzu Application Service 2.13, we released step-up autoscaling within the Cloud Foundry CLI, but in 3.0 it is now also available for consumption within Apps Manager. This can further enhance the developer experience as scaling up or down by x number of instances will be visible and accessible with the GUI.

Operator-focused features

  • New versioning format – The Tanzu Application Service team has adopted a Major.Minor.Patch+Metadata version format to more clearly communicate the level of change that goes into each release, enabling more flexibility for customer consumption of new changes and better visibility into compatibility. Tanzu Application Service 3.0 will be the first release to adopt this new format. Learn more.
  • Updates to long-term support – We are rebranding the long-term support (LTS) release program to the long-term support track (LTST). We aim to create releases for the LTST approximately once per year, with a vision to allow customers consuming the LTST releases to get new features without having to wait for up to two years as they did on the previous release cadence. Learn more.
  • Mute noisy application logs – Operators will now be able to mute specific noisy applications from sending messages through the loggregator subsystem. This will permit operators to reduce the consumption of backend logging systems used for application logging or monitoring low-priority logs.
  • Jammy Jellyfish stemcell rollout – The Tanzu Application Service tile will now support using stemcells based on Jammy Jellyfish or Ubuntu 22.04 LTS. This will allow operators to roll out the latest operating system version to stay ahead of security and compliance-related concerns.
  • Fair CPU entitlement – When enabled, this feature can prevent noisy applications from taking CPU shares from other applications. Operators can rest easy knowing that CPU shares will be enforced across all applications to help attain consistent CPU performance. 

Platform extensions

  • Application Service Adapter for VMware Tanzu Application Platform becomes generally available – The team working on the Cloud Foundry compatibility layer for Tanzu Application Platform (a.k.a. Application Service Adapter) has continued to make progress with incremental beta releases every month since January 2022. The Adapter should move to GA status later in 2022 and will offer a base level of Cloud Foundry compatibility for customers interested in trying out Kubernetes and Tanzu Application Platform without having to retool their developer community.

Interested in Tanzu Application Service? Be sure to check out these sessions at VMware Explore, and stay tuned for Tanzu Application Service and Application Service Adapter release day blog posts.

Read about all of the VMware Tanzu announcements made at VMware Explore 2022.

About the Author

Nick Kuhn

Nick Kuhn is a senior technical marketing architect working on Tanzu Application Service and Tanzu Application Platform. His experience with VMware products started with a traditional role as VI admin and morphed over the years into the realm of DevOps, SRE, and Platform Architecture & Engineering for a Fortune 100 company. In his free time, Nick enjoys spending time with his family, tinkering with tech, and the occasional video game session. You can find him on Twitter @tehkuhnz.

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