Multi Tenancy

Lesson 1: What is Multi Tenancy?

Multi tenancy definition: A software architecture with a central installation of software that is being used by multiple tenants
Tenant definition: a group of users that access the same piece of software, but sees a different set of data
- Each user has a separate environment
This is different than a multi-instance architecture because with multi-instance architectures each user has a unique piece of software installed on a different machine
Typically, multi tenancies are used when providing software as a service in an online environment in the cloud
Access to the cloud environment is given to users/clients via various price models
Each user/customer has access to their own data within the environment

What are the advantages?

Centralized maintenance
Pay-as-you-go pricing models
Fewer resources are needed to serve multiple customers
In DataFlex, multi tenancy is applied in two ways…
- In WebApps: There are different datasets for different users, such as when setting up a software as a service environment
- In Windows: There are usually multiple administrations that are maintained in a single application
There are three main strategies for developing multi-tenancies
Separate application : separate database
- Least efficient (will not be discussed in detail during this series)
One shared application : separate databases
- Each tenant has their own database within a single application
- Better separation of data
- Based on the user, the application switches between databases that have the same structure
  - Pros:
    - Physical separation of data
    - Simple backup & restore per tenant
      - Simple import/export of the data
        Better scalability because databases can be spread over multiple servers
  - Cons:
    - SQL server licensing may be more expensive
    - Database structures are more complicated because they all need to be maintained
One shared application : one shared database
- A single database that holds all the data for all of the customers
- Data is constrained by some sort of tenant ID
- A single table with all of the data that will have a tenant ID column that can be sorted on
  - Pros:
    - Better performance
    - Simpler database updates
    - Licensing costs
  - Cons:
    - Larger database size
    - Implementation is more tedious
      - Serious problem potential: a user sees another user’s data

Multi Tenancy

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Multi Tenancy

Lesson 1: What is Multi Tenancy?