How Does Multi-Tenancy Improve Security in Customer IAM Solutions?

Single-tenant and multi-tenant deployment strategies are often available for SaaS-based CIAM applications. In a single-tenant architecture, each customer has their own dedicated instance of the CIAM infrastructure; in a multi-tenant architecture, on the other hand, several customers share a single instance of the CIAM infrastructure. Businesses can implement CIAM systems at a reasonable cost by using multi-tenancy, which maintains scalability and security.

How Does a Multi-Tenant Architecture Work?

An architecture known as multi-tenancy is one in which a single instance of a program is provided to several users, or "tenants." Despite their abstract separation, the tenants share the same underlying resources. A single-tenant architecture, in which each customer has a separate software instance operating on authorized infrastructure, is contrasted with this method.

Tenant isolation in a multi-tenant customer identity and access management system is accomplished by logical separation. The users, roles, permissions, and workflow of one tenant do not affect those of other tenants.

The multi-tenant architecture has a number of benefits.

• Centralized oversight and visibility
• Reduced Ownership Total Cost (TCO)
• Seamless expansion
• Faster implementation
• Consistent security measures

What Are the Efficiency and Security Benefits of Multi-Tenant CIAM Architecture?

A convincing method for enabling safe collaboration at scale is Multi-tenant Customer IAM. Businesses collaborate with hundreds of software developers, channel partners, and vendors. Client portal access is something that customers also demand.

Such customer and partner integration presents significant challenges when using traditional single-tenant CIAM models. But in a matter of minutes, additional collaborators can be securely onboarded using a multi-tenant cloud identity and access management (CIAM) system.

Such a multi-tenant architecture improves security in a number of ways:

• Fine-grained Access Controls
• Inherent division
• Consistent Identity Management
• Combined Audit Trail

Optimal Strategies for Maximizing the Benefits of Multi-Tenant CIAM Solutions

The initial step is simply choosing a CIAM solution. Achieving security objectives truly depends on how you use and manage these CIAM capabilities in the end. Following these guidelines will help you safely leverage the potential of multi-tenancy:

• Implement MFA: Enforce multi-factor authentication (MFA) for all privileged and admin access. Using hardware keys, authenticator applications, or OTP over SMS, MFA prevents 99% of automated attacks and the misuse of credentials that have been stolen.
• Automate the Governance: Reduce the amount of time spent on human review by implementing automated identity lifecycle workflows for user onboarding, offboarding, and changes. Regular automated access evaluations also remove outdated permissions.
• Use SSO: SSO should be implemented across all apps to streamline user access and provide administrators with a single dashboard view. Access can be immediately terminated with SSO by disabling the CIAM user account.
• Offer Self-Service Tenant: Give tenant administrators the ability to oversee their group roles, users, and access requests. Tenant isolation carries some risk, but it reduces dependency on customer service.

Concluding:

When it comes to CIAM solutions, multi-tenancy provides strong advantages over conventional single-tenant models or businesses running their own CIAM stacks. Easy onboarding of partners, contractors, and customers is made possible by multi-tenant capabilities, which also improve security. Tenant segmentation, resource isolation, and protection against lateral privilege escalation risks are all inherent features of architectural isolation methods.?