VMware Cloud Foundation Multi-Tenancy: Designing Secure Tenant Neighborhoods on a Shared Platform

This article discusses VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) multi-tenancy, using a city metaphor to illustrate how different tenant groups (finance, healthcare, retail, etc.) can securely share a common infrastructure. It emphasizes that tenant isolation is not just about VLANs or resource pools but requires coordinated decisions across identity, networking, storage, automation, security, and lifecycle management. The article highlights the roles of NSX, vSphere, vSAN, VCF Automation, and VCF Operations, and stresses the need for an explicit provider-tenant operating model. It provides practical guidance for architects designing secure tenant neighborhoods on VCF, translating the metaphor into actionable design principles.