In-tree vs Out-of-tree Kubernetes Cloud Providers
VMware offers a Kubernetes Cloud Provider that allows Kubernetes (k8s) administrators to manage parts of the vSphere infrastructure by interacting with the Kubernetes Control Plane. Why is this needed? Well, being able to spin up some new virtual disks and attaching them to your k8s cluster is especially useful when your pods need access to persistent storage for example. The Cloud providers (AWS, vSphere, Azure, GCE) obviously differ between vendors. Each cloud provider has different functionality that might be exposed in some way to the Kubernetes control plane. For example, Amazon Web Services provides a load balancer that can be configured with k8s on demand if you are using the AWS provider, but vSphere does not (unless you’re using NSX). ...