What is multi-tenant architecture in SaaS? #wecommit100xshare

Levels of SaaS architecture can be divided into single-tenant and multi-tenant. What is the difference between them, and why do you need multi-tenancy? Let’s take a look together. Spoiler alert – multi-tenancy makes solutions more efficient.?

A single-tenant approach, also known as the siloed model, is an architecture of the cloud used by one organization. In this case, the application has its own infrastructure, hardware, and software ecosystem.?

This approach works fine if you don’t have entities that have to be managed separately. But, for instance, if you have five different sub-organizations to manage, you need to create five different environments if you go for a single-tenant approach. The creation of separate environments comes hand in hand with more maintenance, which leads to higher costs.?

Multi-tenant SaaS architecture is a model where a single environment serves multiple tenants. Tenant defines a group of users that share access to certain software.

The infrastructure, in that case, is shared, logically isolated, and has fully centralized services. The multi-tenant architecture evolves depending on the organization logged into the application and is transparent to the end-user.

Strengths of multi-tenant architecture in SaaS

1. Cost-efficiency

Multiple tenants mean that the cost for the environment is shared. As a result, multi-tenancy allows reducing labor resources.?

Also, the cost of a multi-tenant environment depends on the number of devices that send data, not the amount of data itself. So, adopting multi-tenant SaaS architecture gives you a predictable cost of ownership, which, in turn, simplifies budgeting.

2. Secure shared analytics and intelligence

Introducing multi-tenant architecture often comes together with a need for data analytics. However, to maintain high security, measures should be taken. For instance, some vendors use the data anonymity approach to do that. Basically, they remove all the information that can help trace it down to a specific tenant. It, in turn, helps to achieve more security of your data.

3. Prompt response to changing market needs?

Different SaaS providers compete for the customers. Introducing new features to their system is a way to win this competition. And it is easier to do when you have a multi-tenant architecture in SaaS.?

Let’s say your competitor does not have multi-tenant software architecture in place. It has ten separate virtual machines on the cloud. In that case, they have to introduce changes to all the machines separately. At the same time, you can introduce changes to all tenants at once, which takes way less time.?

4. Fast deployment and setup

When it comes to multi-tenant architecture, provisioning a new tenant can be done quickly and easily. So, new customers can set up their environment promptly, which frees up resources for new technology adoption.?

What’s more, as businesses need to adjust to ever-changing market needs, the ability to configure your system is of the essence. Muti-tenancy can help you with that: you can change the system according to new requirements and have broader space for experiments.??

Advantages and disadvantages of multi-tenancy

There are a number of advantages and disadvantages that come with becoming a host provider and a tenant with multi-tenancy.

Some advantages include the following:

• It's less expensive compared to other tenant hosting architectures.
• It offers pay-for-what-you-use and pay-as-you-go (PAYG) pricing models.
• Tenants that use a provider's software don't have to worry about updates, because they're pushed out by the host provider.
• Tenants don't have to worry about the hardware their data is being hosted on.
• Providers only have to monitor and administrate a single system.
• The architecture is easily scalable.

Some disadvantages that come with multi-tenancy include the following:

• Apps delivered by a provider tend to be less flexible than apps in other tenant architectures, such as single-tenancy.
• It is, in general, more complex than single-tenancy because of the additional virtualization and management needed to isolate and secure each tenant.
• Apps need stricter authentication and access controls for security.
• Tenants have to worry about noisy neighbors, which might slow response time for other tenants sharing the same resources.
• Downtime might also be an issue, depending on the provider. Collateral impacts such as one server problem affecting many users can also be an undesirable risk.

reference origin documentation: https://www.n-ix.com/why-should-you-adopt-multi-tenant-architecture/