In a vCloud Director Cloud Service Provider, network configuration changes can be instigated and managed from within the vCloud Director user interface or API by either the customers themselves, or the VMware Cloud Provider on their customers’ behalf. While some changes, such as IP address pool management or gateway addresses, remain within the vCloud Director configuration database, most impact the layers below. For example, in the case of a new Org VDC network, the request is passed from vCloud Director to the VMware NSX Manager™ connected to the vCenter Server that hosts the resource pool for the provider VDC in the Organization VDC where the new network is to be created. The NSX Manager configures the network within its internal state model, and then the underlying vSphere layer through the NSX Manager’s link to its parent vCenter Server.

The following sections examine this layered model from the perspective of the previous single tenant topology as well as the multitenant view at both the vSphere and NSX configuration layers.