One of the key benefits of implementing a vCloud is the ability to rapidly provision vApps into the vCloud environment. Capacity management is designed so that the vCloud infrastructure has sufficient capacity to meet the current and future needs of consumers under normal circumstances. Maintaining sufficient reserve capacity in the vCloud infrastructure typically prevents vApps from contending for resources. This mitigates the risk of breaching a service level agreement (SLA).

Provisioning and consuming vApps reduces the capacity of the vCloud infrastructure. To provide additional capacity, vCloud providers typically implement robust management processes that make sufficient resources available to support the service level requirements associated with vApp provisioning and performance.

As vCloud resources are consumed, additional capacity must also be added to allow for anticipated future demand while preserving sufficient capacity for near-term needs. To predict future capacity needs, analyze current capacity usage and trends to determine growth rates, and then estimate future needs based on new consumers and projects.