The first element is secure separation. Secure separation refers to the effective segmentation and isolation of tenant’s assets and resources within the multitenant environment. Without secure separation, a trusted multitenant vCenter Server environment cannot exist.

Service assurance plays a critical design role in a shared vCenter Server architecture, providing tenants with a consistent, enforceable, and reliable service level. In a multitenant vCenter Server environment, the service provider must manage virtual resources to accommodate the growth and changing business needs of all tenants. Service level agreements (SLAs) define the level of service agreed upon by tenants and the service provider. Service assurance plays a key role to make sure that tenants receive the agreed upon level of service from network, compute, and storage resources.

A number of methods are available to service providers to deliver consistent SLAs across the network, compute, and storage components of the shared vCenter Server platform, including QoS, limits, and vSphere DRS. However, without the correct mix of service assurance features and capabilities, which are built into vCenter Server and vSphere components, maintaining uptime, throughput, quality of service, and availability SLAs can be challenging.