Understanding Workspaces in Nutanix Kubernetes Platform (NKP)
- Taylor Norris
- Jul 1
- 2 min read
As enterprises scale their Kubernetes adoption, managing multi-cluster environments with role-based control and configuration consistency becomes increasingly complex. Nutanix Kubernetes Platform (NKP) simplifies this with Workspaces—a logical structure designed to bring organization, autonomy, and governance to your cluster operations.
What Is a Workspace?
A Workspace in NKP is a logical grouping of Kubernetes clusters that share common configurations and are governed by the same administrative domain. Workspaces act as tenant or team-level boundaries, enabling DevOps teams or business units to independently manage multiple clusters without affecting others.
Example Use Cases:
Grouping clusters by department (e.g., Finance, Engineering)
Organizing by environment type (e.g., Dev, QA, Prod)
Creating multi-tenant environments for different customers
When Should You Use Workspaces?
Use workspaces when:
You need to enforce separation of concerns among teams or tenants.
You want to standardize application deployments and configurations across related clusters.
You need a multi-cluster management plane with scoped access and visibility.
You want to manage platform applications and resources centrally for multiple clusters.
Benefits of Workspaces
Benefit | Description |
🔒 Role-Based Access Control | Different roles (Global Admins, Workspace Admins, Developers) manage access. |
🔁 Configuration Federation | Automatically propagates settings and apps across all clusters in a workspace. |
📦 Platform App Consistency | Enables seamless deployment of apps across clusters. |
🎯 Cluster Targeting | Customize applications at cluster-level while maintaining workspace-wide policies. |
🔍 Centralized Management | Consolidate multi-cluster operations within intuitive UI scopes. |
How to Create a Workspace in NKP
Creating a workspace is simple and can be done via the NKP UI:
Step 1: Click Create Workspace
Step 2: Give your workspace a name and description
Step 3: Click Create
Step 4: Click Continue to Workspace
Step 5: Now you can add clusters or create projects in your workspace.
💡 The new workspace is now available from the dropdown. Keep in mind: once a cluster is assigned to a workspace, it cannot be moved to another.
🏷 Adding Annotations and Labels
You can enrich your workspace metadata by tagging them for searchability and automation:
To Add/Edit Labels or Annotations:
Go to the target workspace from the top menu.
Click Actions > Edit Workspace
Add or modify Key-Value pairs in the labels or annotations section.
Final Thoughts
Workspaces in NKP bring clarity, structure, and efficiency to Kubernetes cluster management. Whether you're building tenant isolation, enabling DevOps agility, or rolling out consistent observability stacks—Workspaces provide the organizational control to scale Kubernetes confidently.
Stay tuned for future posts diving into Platform Applications, Projects, and Custom Branding in NKP!
Additional Resources
Comments