Company management has declared that all VCF workload domains require a 20% space buffer and...

The correct configuration is to set Operational Intent Cluster Headroom to 20% and set Workload Optimization to Consolidate. VCF Operations Workload Optimization is governed by Operational Intent, which defines how workloads are placed and balanced across clusters. The Workload Automation policy settings define Workload Optimization goals as Balance, Moderate, or Consolidate. The documentation states that Consolidate proactively minimizes the number of clusters used by workloads, potentially freeing resources and supporting cost optimization while still meeting performance goals . That directly maps to the requirement to place workloads into as few clusters as possible. The same policy workspace includes Cluster Headroom, which establishes a required capacity buffer, with the documentation explicitly giving 20 percent as an example and explaining that it preserves extra space for growth inside the cluster . Business Intent tags are used for placement rules based on vCenter tag categories such as operating system, environment, tier, network, or other business constraints, not for defining operational headroom or consolidation strategy . Reference topic: Objective 4.6 – Workload Optimization / Operational Intent / Consolidate mode / Cluster Headroom.