Integrating VMware Data Services Manager with Harbor for a Production-Ready Registry

The Solution: Leveraging VMware Data Services Manager with Harbor Prerequisites Step 1: Provisioning PostgreSQL with VMware DSM Step 2: Preparing the Harbor Helm Chart Configuration Step 3: Deploying Harbor on Kubernetes Step 4: Verification and Maintenance Conclusion Discover more from VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) Blog Related Articles VCF Breakroom Chats Episode 78: Build, Deploy, and Scale with vSphere Kubernetes Service 3.5 Unlocking Innovation on the Factory Floor: How VMware VCF Edge Empowers OT Citizen Developers Erasure Codes in VMware vSAN versus Storage Arrays Harbor is a widely adopted, open-source registry that secures artifacts with role-based access control, scans images for vulnerabilities, and ensures images are replicated and trusted. As a cloud-native registry, it is a critical component for any organization leveraging Kubernetes and containerization. In our previous blog , we established that while Harbor includes a built-in PostgreSQL database, this setup is generally not recommended for production use. Deploying a resilient, highly available container registry requires separating the application and database lifecycle to ensure operational excellence. Here are the key reasons why a dedicated, external database is critical for production Harbor deployments: Lack of High Availability (HA): The default internal PostgreSQL setup is typically a single instance, creating a single point of failure. A database pod failure means your entire Harbor instance becomes unavailable. Limited Scalability: An embedded database is not designed for independent scaling. Database performance bottlenecks that arise from growth can be difficult to address without disrupting Harbor itself. Complex Lifecycle Management: Managing critical database operations such as backups, point-in-time recovery, patching, and upgrades directly within an application’s Helm chart is significantly more complex and error-prone than with dedicated database solutions. To address these challenges, we need a highly available PostgreSQL cluster. This is where VMware Data Services Manager (DSM) comes in. VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) is the private cloud platform that delivers on-premises security, resilience, and performance, providing the underlying infrastructure for modern private cloud environments, including the Kubernetes clusters where applications like Harbor are deployed.