As service providers rethink their cloud infrastructure strategies, many are looking for alternatives that offer configuration flexibility, clearer infrastructure planning, and opportunities to differentiate their services.
But choosing the right technology platform is only the first step.
The bigger challenge is turning that platform into a cloud offering designed to support scalability, security, and operational efficiency. That requires architectural decisions around multitenancy, networking, security, resource management, and growth—while planning how to introduce new services.
And while every service provider has unique requirements, many encounter similar foundational architectural considerations.
With the general availability of Nutanix Service Provider Central (SP Central), Nutanix introduced a purpose-built solution designed to help service providers deliver and manage multitenant Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) offerings on Nutanix Cloud Platform.
Now, we’re sharing additional architectural guidance to help service providers move from platform evaluation toward deployment planning.
I’m excited to share the Nutanix Validated Design for Multitenant Infrastructure with Nutanix Service Provider Central (NVD-2219). This engineering-validated design documents architecture decisions, configuration recommendations, and deployment considerations for multitenant cloud infrastructure.
A Validated Starting Point for Deployment Planning
One of the challenges we consistently hear from service providers is that selecting the right cloud platform is only the beginning. The real work comes when it’s time to design an environment around customer requirements, operational processes, and future growth.
That’s where a Nutanix Validated Design makes a difference.
Rather than starting with a blank slate, service providers can use the design decisions, configuration guidance, and software-version assumptions documented in the SP Central Validated Design.
By providing a validated architectural starting point, the Nutanix Validated Design can help service providers spend less time working through foundational design decisions and more time developing services that meet their customers’ needs.
A Validated Architecture for Multitenant Cloud Services
The SP Central Validated Design describes an architecture for multitenant cloud infrastructure, including the management plane, tenant workload environments, and networking and security components that connect them.
The design is intended as a foundation that service providers can adapt to their business requirements and operational environments.
Designed for the Realities of Service Provider Environments
The SP Central Validated Design addresses several architectural areas service providers should evaluate when building a multitenant cloud.
Multitenancy with Guidance for Security and Isolation
Supporting multiple customers on shared infrastructure requires careful separation of resources, management access, and network traffic.
The NVD describes an architecture using dedicated management infrastructure, tenant-specific projects, role-based access controls, resource quotas, and network isolation to help providers plan tenant separation according to their requirements and operating model.
It also provides guidance for shared and dedicated tenant clusters, which providers can evaluate against customer requirements, service tiers, and operational practices.
Networking Options for Different Service Provider Requirements
Networking is often one of the most complex aspects of delivering multitenant cloud services.
Not every service provider approaches tenant connectivity the same way. Some prefer shared infrastructure with network address translation (NAT), while others need to support customers bringing their own IP address space or requiring dedicated network isolation.
The NVD describes three common connectivity and isolation models, providing practical design guidance for different scenarios.
These options can help service providers evaluate how SP Central might fit within existing network architectures, depending on their environment and requirements.
Plan for Growth with a Phased Deployment
Not every service provider needs—or wants—to make a significant infrastructure investment on day one.
The NVD describes a phased approach that can begin with a single rack in one availability zone and expand to additional racks and availability zones, subject to the documented sizing, software, hardware, networking, and operational assumptions.
The NVD also documents important scalability considerations, including cluster sizing, management domain limits, workload placement, and resource allocation.
This can provide a foundation for planning infrastructure growth and applying consistent design practices.
Practical Guidance for Deployment and Operations
Beyond the architecture itself, the NVD includes recommendations covering compute, storage, networking, resilience, and infrastructure management.
These include documented software-version assumptions, recommended cluster configurations, resource allocation guidelines, and design considerations for management and tenant workloads.
For service provider architects and engineering teams, this guidance can help structure design workshops and support the transition from architecture discussions toward deployment planning.
From Architecture to Opportunity
SP Central expands Nutanix’s service-provider-focused offering for building and managing multitenant cloud services.
But delivering the technology is only part of the equation.
We also recognize that service providers need architectural guidance and operational planning alongside technology to turn a platform into a service offering.
The SP Central Validated Design reflects our commitment to helping service providers move from evaluating what’s possible toward planning what to build next.
Get Started
The Nutanix Validated Design for Multitenant Infrastructure with Nutanix Service Provider Central (NVD-2219) is publicly available.
We encourage service provider architects, engineers, and technical decision-makers to review the complete design, evaluate its assumptions against their requirements, and validate applicable configurations before production deployment.
Explore the SP Central validated design.
We look forward to seeing what our service provider partners build next!
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