VMware Cloud Director — Comprehensive Platform for Cloud Providers

Contents

• What is VMware Cloud Director in the cloud?
• How Cloud Director works.
• Key features of Cloud Director.
• VMware Cloud Director vs vCenter — what's the difference?
• Conclusions.

VCD has a history spanning approximately fifteen years. Over this time, the platform has undergone significant changes — from a simple tool for managing virtual machines to a full-fledged solution for cloud services of any level. With each new version, VMware has added functionality necessary to meet the growing needs of service providers and their clients — from multi-tenancy support and flexible resource allocation models to integration with the latest VMware technologies, including NSX and vSphere with Tanzu. Today, VCD continues to evolve and remains a market leader among independent cloud platforms.​

In this article, we will delve into the capabilities of VMware Cloud Director, its architecture, key features and advantages. The evolution of the platform from its early versions to the latest (as of March 2025) is described in the article: “Evolution of VMware Cloud Director: Overview of Versions and Key Changes.” Whether you're a service provider looking to expand your service portfolio or a large organization planning to build your own private cloud, this article will help you understand the basic capabilities and key nuances of VCD.

VMware Cloud Director in the Cloud

Let's start with the basics. VMware Cloud Director (formerly vCloud Director) is a powerful cloud platform designed for service providers (such as telecom companies and hosting providers) and large organizations with distributed IT infrastructure. It allows the creation and management of virtual data centers (vDCs) with a high level of isolation and flexibility, ensuring efficient resource distribution among different users.​

One of the key advantages of VMware Cloud Director is its multi-tenant architecture, which allows the creation of fully isolated environments for different companies or business units. Beyond environment isolation, vCloud Director provides resource management for each tenant, preventing the "noisy neighbor" effect. The platform also simplifies billing and resource usage accounting for each client, enhancing the convenience of cloud service delivery and security levels. Additionally, automation and orchestration tools are available, enabling convenient management of virtual resources through an intuitive web interface or API.​

Thanks to integration with VMware vSphere and NSX, Cloud Director provides full control over compute, network and storage resources. Integration with NSX extends network security and micro-segmentation capabilities. vCloud Director supports various types of storage, including vSAN, allowing the construction of scalable, reliable cloud solutions with enhanced security and load balancing capabilities.​

VMware Cloud Director also supports hybrid models, allowing organizations to easily move workloads between on-premises and cloud environments using "hot" and "cold" migrations, as well as implement disaster recovery. Integration with VMware Cloud Director Availability makes this process as convenient as possible. The hybrid approach is particularly in demand among companies that want to leverage the benefits of the public cloud while maintaining full control over sensitive data.​

Furthermore, Cloud Director enables application lifecycle management, service catalog creation, cloud environment performance monitoring and analysis, Kubernetes container management (thanks to integration vSphere with Tanzu) and more.​

It's worth noting that De Novo, as a major VMware partner, has been building clouds based on VMware solutions from the very beginning, including using VCD, along with many other company products. Moreover, De Novo holds the VMware Cloud Verified status, confirming that the operator's cloud is built according to VMware's reference system architecture requirements regarding technological advancement, functionality, reliability and fault tolerance.

How Cloud Director Works

As mentioned earlier, VMware Cloud Director ensures flexibility, scalability and security of cloud environments — but these are general terms. So how does it work in practice?​

One of VCD's key principles is multi-tenancy. It allows the creation of independent logically isolated environments within a single physical infrastructure. This means that service providers can offer cloud services to different clients without the risk of data leakage between them. Each client company can be provided with either pre-configured sets of virtual machines or a separate virtualized IT environment — an "organization" (Org vDC) — with available resources and the ability for "free planning" within their own account.​

Thus, Org vDC allows the deployment of a virtual IT infrastructure at one's discretion (considering available resources) — independently determining its configuration and architecture. Essentially, Org vDC is a virtual data center tied to a single organization, functioning atop VMware Cloud Director.​

Within Org vDC, clients are provided not only with an isolated space for managing computing resources but also with the ability to delegate access rights within the organization. Org vDCs can include several clusters with different levels of performance and availability, allowing the construction of flexible infrastructure solutions. Additionally, Org vDCs are closely integrated with Cloud Director's network services — such as Edge Gateway and virtual networks.​

It's also worth mentioning VCD's integration with VMware vSphere with Tanzu, which allows clients to create and manage container infrastructures based on Kubernetes within their Org vDCs. This provides flexibility and scalability for modern applications and simplifies the management of hybrid environments where virtual machines and containers coexist. Containers can interact with virtual machines within Org vDCs, opening new possibilities for application development and deployment.​

Resource Allocation and Consumption Models

Particular attention should be paid to resource allocation and consumption models within the platform. Cloud Director provides high flexibility in IT resource management, offering several primary consumption models:​

• ​Pay-as-you-go: Dynamic resource allocation according to demand. Optimal for test, development environments, or applications with variable workloads.​
• ​Reservation Pool: Fixed resources fully allocated to the client.​
• ​Allocation Pool: Allocation of a certain amount of resources with the possibility of flexible distribution within set limits. Unlike Reservation Pool, resources in Allocation Pool can be redistributed among virtual machines within Org vDC.​
• ​Dedicated Allocation: The client receives clearly defined computing capacities not shared with other users.​

From a resource allocation perspective, the platform supports the following approaches:​

• ​Reservation: Certain computing resources are fully allocated to a specific client (corresponds to the Dedicated Allocation model).
• Flexible consumption: Resources are allocated dynamically according to needs (Pay-as-you-go model).​
• ​Guaranteed minimums: Allocation of a fixed amount of resources with the possibility of redistribution within limits (Allocation Pool model).​

Cloud Director also allows configuring Quality of Service (QoS) policies for allocated resources, ensuring predictable performance. Additionally, the platform provides transparency and accuracy in resource consumption accounting within each model, which is important for billing and cost analysis.​

Thus, Cloud Director offers numerous advantages for service providers and their clients, the main ones being:​

• Efficient infrastructure utilization.
• Flexibility and scalability.
• Security and environment isolation.
• Self-service for clients.
• Automation and centralized management.
• Compliance with security requirements.​

Thanks to these advantages, Cloud Director is a powerful tool for building and managing operator-level cloud environments.

Key Features of Cloud Director

The main advantage of VMware Cloud Director is that this solution provides a wide range of features for building and managing cloud infrastructures of any level, ensuring high levels of control, security and automation. Let's examine the platform's main capabilities in more detail.​

Delegation of Authority

Delegation of authority allows administrators to distribute access and permissions among different users and organizations, as well as within them — between departments or teams. For example, roles can be assigned: organization administrator, virtual machine user, network administrator, etc. Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) support provides precise access configuration at the level of individual resources, users and APIs, ensuring flexible cloud environment management and simplifying administration.​

Monitoring and Analytics

Monitoring and analytics functions are built into Cloud Director and provide detailed information about resource usage, virtual machine performance and network status. In addition to integration with VMware vRealize Operations, built-in tools are available: event logs, resource usage reports, performance charts. This helps not only to identify problems but also to forecast needs, optimizing planning. Critical event notifications can also be configured.​

Networking Features

Networking features include support for Software-Defined Networking (SDN), virtual routers, firewalls and VPNs. Integration with VMware NSX allows configuring complex network topologies with high levels of security and traffic segmentation, including micro-segmentation, distributed firewall, load balancing and VPN services. Additionally, Cloud Director supports Layer 2 VPN, virtual private networks and micro-segmentation firewalls to protect user data. Various types of networks are supported: isolated, routed and external. Security policies can be configured at the network level, including firewall rules and QoS policies.​

Access Control

Access control is implemented through a role-based management model, allowing the assignment of different permission levels for administrators, users and clients. The platform supports Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) and integration with Active Directory, which enhances security by enabling user and group synchronization.

Access is controlled not only through the Cloud Director web interface but also via API. In addition to traditional authentication methods, federated services such as SAML and OAuth are supported, allowing integration with corporate Single Sign-On (SSO) systems. The platform also provides user action auditing for compliance and traceability.

Automation

Cloud Director supports automation through REST APIs, simplifying integration with external systems and deployment of cloud services. For instance, administrators can automate virtual machine creation, network configuration, or user management.

The platform includes VMware Cloud Director Availability for data protection and disaster recovery between clouds — with support for VM replication, automated failover and DR scenario testing.

Infrastructure as Code (IaC) is also supported via Terraform and vRealize Automation, making Cloud Director well-suited for DevOps approaches — not just for deploying resources, but also for managing, updating, or deleting them. Additional integrations are available with tools like Ansible and PowerShell.

Moreover, VCD supports various types of storage — local, network-based and cloud — and integrates with other VMware products to enable hybrid cloud architectures.

Thanks to all these capabilities, VMware Cloud Director is a powerful tool for building modern cloud infrastructures with high levels of control, security and automation.

VMware Cloud Director vs vCenter — Key Differences

VMware Cloud Director (VCD) and vCenter are two core products in the VMware ecosystem, but they serve different purposes and audiences. While vCenter is an infrastructure management tool designed for administrators of private data centers, VMware Cloud Director enables cloud providers to build scalable and secure multi-tenant cloud environments for multiple clients.

The choice between these solutions depends on your needs: local infrastructure management or full-scale cloud service delivery.

Purpose

VMware Cloud Director is a cloud management platform aimed at service providers (CSPs) and large organizations offering cloud services. It allows the creation of virtual data centers, management of isolated environments for various clients and automation of cloud services.

vCenter is a centralized tool for managing the VMware vSphere hypervisor, providing administrators with control over virtual machines, ESXi hosts and infrastructure components.

Audience and Use Cases

VMware Cloud Director is designed for cloud providers and companies that want to offer Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) to clients. It supports multi-tenant, isolated environments.

vCenter is used by IT administrators to manage virtual machines and servers within a single organization or enterprise environment.

Management and Automation

VCD provides a higher level of abstraction, enabling automated deployment and management of multi-tenant environments through templates, resource policies and APIs for integration with other cloud services.

vCenter focuses on managing individual ESXi hosts, clusters, virtual machines and resources, offering centralized infrastructure monitoring and control.

Resource Segregation and Security

VCD allows administrators to delegate resource management to clients or departments within an organization by creating logically isolated environments (VDCs). It supports a multi-level user system with granular access rights.

vCenter is primarily intended for centralized IT control within one organization and provides permission management without multi-tenancy.

Integration and Scalability

VMware Cloud Director supports integration with external clouds (such as VMware Cloud on AWS), as well as billing and user management systems. vCenter is a foundational tool for managing VMware environments but does not support multi-tenancy or public cloud service provisioning.

Conclusion

VMware Cloud Director is a comprehensive and powerful solution for building and managing cloud infrastructures. It offers a high level of flexibility, scalability and security, making it an ideal choice for service providers and large organizations. With its multi-tenant architecture, flexible resource allocation models and integration with other VMware products, VCD enables efficient infrastructure usage and meets the needs of various clients.

The evolution of VCD from its early versions to the latest releases demonstrates VMware's commitment to continuously improving the platform and adding new capabilities. Integration with modern technologies such as NSX and vSphere with Tanzu keeps Cloud Director at the forefront of cloud innovation. As a result, VMware Cloud Director is a reliable and proven solution for building public, private and hybrid clouds. No matter the chosen approach, this platform provides all the necessary tools for success.