Multitenancy

Multitenancy#

Multitenancy is an architectural concept where a single instance of software serves multiple customers or organizations (tenants). Each tenant’s data and configuration remain isolated from other tenants, despite sharing the same application and infrastructure resources.

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Core Principles of Multitenancy#

  1. Resource Sharing: Tenants share computing resources, application code, and infrastructure.

  2. Logical Isolation: Despite sharing resources, each tenant’s data and operations remain separated.

  3. Customization: Tenants can often customize their experience within certain boundaries.

  4. Centralized Administration: The service provider can manage and update a single system that affects all tenants.

Multitenancy Models#

  1. Shared Everything: All tenants share the same application instance and database, with tenant identification at the data level.

  2. Shared Application, Separate Database: Tenants share the application but have individual databases.

  3. Separate Everything: Each tenant gets dedicated application instances and databases (closer to single-tenancy).

Benefits of Multitenancy#

  • Cost Efficiency: Reduced overhead from sharing infrastructure and maintenance costs.

  • Resource Optimization: Better resource utilization across all tenants.

  • Simplified Updates: Updates applied once affect all tenants.

  • Scalability: Easier to scale as tenant base grows.

  • Operational Efficiency: Centralized monitoring and management.

Challenges#

  • Data Isolation: Ensuring proper security boundaries between tenants.

  • Performance: Preventing one tenant from negatively impacting others.

  • Customization Limits: Balancing tenant-specific needs with shared architecture.

  • Complexity: More complex design and implementation.

Multitenancy is fundamental to most modern SaaS (Software as a Service) platforms, cloud applications, and many enterprise systems. Examples include Salesforce, Office 365, and Google Workspace, where many organizations use the same application with their own isolated data and configurations.