Use Case: Sharing One Kubernetes Cluster Across Multiple Internal Teams

In the world of Kubernetes adoption, one of the most common questions we hear is: "Can multiple internal teams safely share the same Kubernetes cluster?" The answer is yes - if we have the right multi-tenancy solution in place. That’s exactly where Stakater Multi-Tenant Operator (MTO) comes in.

The Problem: Kubernetes Wasn’t Built for Multi-Tenancy

By default, Kubernetes is a powerful but flat system. All namespaces exist in the same space, and without proper isolation, teams can:

• Accidentally access or interfere with each other’s resources

• Overconsume cluster resources and cause outages

• Introduce inconsistent security and tooling configurations

• Struggle with unclear ownership of workloads

This creates tension between platform teams - who want centralized control, governance, and efficiency, and developer teams - who want autonomy, agility, and speed.

The Internal Team Use Case

Let’s say our organization has multiple teams:

• A mobile team building customer-facing apps

• A backend team running APIs and core services

• A data science team managing models and pipelines

• A QA team running automated regression and performance tests

• A DevOps team responsible for CI/CD pipelines

We want all these teams to share a single Kubernetes cluster to achieve:

• Cost savings (no need to run multiple clusters)

• Operational simplicity (just one cluster to monitor and secure)

• Standardization (common tools, policies, and practices)

But we also want each team to work in isolation and take ownership of their own workloads. We’re looking for:

• Secure, scoped access control

• Clear limits on resource usage

• Consistent observability and backup setups

• Easy onboarding and offboarding

The Solution: MTO Makes One Cluster Feel Like Many

Stakater MTO transforms Kubernetes into a team-friendly, policy-driven, multi-tenant platform. It gives us:

• Isolated namespaces per team, with automatically enforced RBAC, NetworkPolicies, and Pod Security Standards

• Consistent, automated provisioning using custom resource definitions (CRDs)

• Built-in templates for GitOps, logging, monitoring, and backup tools

• Quota and LimitRange enforcement to keep resource consumption in check

• Support for secrets and service accounts, so teams can manage their own secure access

• Namespace-level observability, making it easier to debug and audit by team

Each team gets a dedicated environment - their own space to build, deploy, test, and operate apps - while the platform team keeps full control over policy, standards, and costs.

The Benefits

For Developer Teams:

• Autonomy to deploy and operate independently

• Security isolation without needing separate clusters

• Onboarding in minutes, not days

For Platform Teams:

• Governance by default - security, quotas, and tools applied consistently

• Operational efficiency - one cluster, many tenants

• Cost visibility and control - per-tenant usage tracking

This approach also sets us up for future scaling - bringing new teams on board, spinning up test environments, or offering ephemeral namespaces becomes fast and predictable.

Real-World Analogy

Think of it like a co-working space: every team gets their own locked office with desks, internet, and storage - but we all share the same building infrastructure. It’s secure, efficient, and much easier to manage than giving everyone a separate building (or in our case, a separate cluster).

Final Thoughts

If our organization is growing and more teams are onboarding to Kubernetes, now’s the time to adopt a real multi-tenancy strategy. With MTO, we don’t need to keep adding clusters - we just need to manage the one we’ve got more effectively.

MTO makes it possible for us to scale Kubernetes across the organization without giving up security, developer agility, or cost control.

Let’s start enabling your teams with MTO today.