This article is based on reporting originally published on InfoQ and a VMware product webinar held in early 2020.
Background: VMware Acquires Pivotal
In August 2019, VMware announced its intention to acquire Pivotal, the Kubernetes-focused cloud platform and professional services company. The acquisition closed at the end of 2019. The timing was notable: VMware had just introduced its VMware Tanzu portfolio at the same moment it announced the Pivotal deal, making clear that Pivotal would be central to the new strategy. However, VMware did not immediately explain how Pivotal products and existing VMware products would coexist.
In a webinar held in early 2020, VMware product vice-president Craig McLuckie filled in those details, describing the roadmap for Pivotal Application Service (PAS), Pivotal Container Service (PKS), BOSH, and vSphere Kubernetes integration.
Pivotal Application Service (PAS) on Kubernetes
McLuckie confirmed that migrating Pivotal Application Service to run natively on Kubernetes is a top priority. At the time of the webinar, PAS on Kubernetes was in alpha, with general availability (GA) targeted for the end of 2020.
Key commitments for PAS included:
- Windows support: PAS 2.9 was set to extend Kubernetes-on-Windows support, with that release scheduled for Q1 2020.
- Graceful shutdown configuration: Improved controls for how application instances shut down during platform events.
- High-level metrics in Apps Manager: Easier visibility into application health directly from the developer console.
- Feature parity goal: VMware committed to leveling up PAS on VMs and PAS on Kubernetes so both platforms receive equivalent capabilities over time, avoiding a two-tier support experience.
BOSH: Continued Investment in Open-Source Lifecycle Management
McLuckie also reaffirmed VMware’s commitment to BOSH, the open-source release-engineering tool designed to unify the deployment, release, and lifecycle management of distributed cloud applications across large numbers of virtual machines. VMware’s focus going forward would be on BOSH’s automated cluster and OS lifecycle management capabilities, positioning it as a foundational layer beneath both VM-based and Kubernetes-based workloads.
Pivotal Container Service (PKS) 1.7
The existing Pivotal Container Service — also marketed as VMware Enterprise PKS — was set to receive a new release, PKS 1.7, in Q1 2020. Planned improvements included:
- Additional monitoring metrics for cluster operators
- Improved upgrade workflows and configuration management
- Windows container support entering beta
A Unified Control Plane for VMs and Kubernetes
One of the most significant architectural decisions described in the webinar was VMware’s plan to provide a single, integrated control plane capable of managing both virtual machines and Kubernetes clusters. McLuckie described the rationale:
“We made an important decision in the last few months which was that, in order to make this experience complete, we really wanted to containerise the control plane, so that it actually has the ability to run on Kubernetes, and to effectively remove the need for a discrete cluster of virtual machines off to the side. This ultimately brings considerably reduced operational complexity, potentially a smaller footprint, easier to adopt at a team level.”
— Craig McLuckie, VP Product, VMware
The practical benefit for platform teams is the elimination of a separate VM cluster dedicated solely to running control-plane components — reducing both infrastructure cost and operational overhead.
Convergence of Enterprise PKS and vSphere Kubernetes (Tanzu Kubernetes Grid)
After the Pivotal acquisition, VMware found itself with two distinct Kubernetes-focused product lines:
- Enterprise PKS — the Pivotal/VMware enterprise Kubernetes distribution, originally built on BOSH.
- vSphere with Tanzu Kubernetes Grid — VMware’s native vSphere integration for running Kubernetes workloads directly on the hypervisor layer.
McLuckie confirmed that these two streams would converge in a non-disruptive manner. Specifically, all existing Enterprise PKS customers would be entitled to Tanzu Kubernetes Grid as the two product lines merged. The goal was to protect existing investments while moving customers toward a unified, vSphere-integrated Kubernetes experience under the Tanzu umbrella.
What This Means for DevOps and Platform Engineering Teams
For organizations running VMware infrastructure alongside Cloud Foundry or Kubernetes workloads, the post-Pivotal VMware strategy signaled several practical directions:
- Don’t abandon PAS: VMware committed to ongoing support, so existing Cloud Foundry-based application platforms were not being end-of-lifed.
- Kubernetes is the long-term substrate: PAS moving to Kubernetes signals that K8s is the foundational runtime layer for the entire Tanzu portfolio.
- Expect tooling consolidation: The single-control-plane vision means that VM and container operations will increasingly be managed through unified interfaces rather than separate toolchains.
- Enterprise PKS customers get an upgrade path: The entitlement to Tanzu Kubernetes Grid means existing PKS deployments have a clear migration route rather than a hard cutover.
The webinar represented VMware’s first detailed public articulation of how the Tanzu portfolio would absorb Pivotal’s products — and the core message was continuity first, convergence second.