Kubernetes Pod Density on VMware Cloud Foundation

This technical report evaluates the performance of VMware Cloud Foundation 9.0 with vSphere Kubernetes Service 3.6 in comparison to a bare-metal Red Hat OpenShift 4.21 environment. The report outlines the significant advantages of VCF 9.0, which achieved 5.6 times the maximum stable Kubernetes pod density and 4.9 times faster average pod readiness. It details how Kubernetes pod density is a critical metric for organizations looking to modernize applications, as it directly impacts infrastructure utilization and operational costs. The study employed the kube-burner tool to assess the maximum pod density each platform could sustain under identical hardware configurations. Key findings indicate that VCF 9.0 can support 42,000 pods, vastly outperforming OpenShift's 7,400 pods. The report also discusses the factors influencing pod density, including resource limits and platform architecture, and emphasizes the importance of faster pod readiness for scaling containerized applications efficiently. Overall, the findings suggest that VCF 9.0 with VKS can significantly enhance workload management for organizations.