What Is Multitenancy?

In at the moment’s altering enterprise atmosphere, corporations are on the lookout for extra environment friendly and cost-effective methods to handle their knowledge and assets. One resolution to those challenges is multitenancy, an idea that permits a number of prospects to share a single software program occasion.

Multitenancy is a software program structure that serves a number of customers by delivering a single occasion of the software program. It permits every consumer to entry the info, configuration, consumer administration, and different particular functionalities of a given occasion. These customers are sometimes referred to as tenants.

Tenants may be:

• Customers and consumer teams who’re outdoors of your organization however associated to your small business (e.g., resellers, brokers, franchise items, and many others.).
• Clients (e.g., subscribers or consumer corporations).
• Customers inside your organization (e.g., departments, international enterprise items, or single customers with particular wants).

An instance of multitenancy may be present in multi-tenant analytics platforms. Multi-tenant analytics performs the identical duties as conventional analytics, i.e., reworking knowledge into significant insights and visualizations for enterprise decision-making. Nevertheless, it additionally permits a number of prospects to make use of the identical analytics instruments/platforms whereas guaranteeing every consumer’s knowledge and configuration are stored separate and safe from different customers.

Earlier than we discover how multitenancy works and how one can implement it inside your atmosphere, let’s first take a look at why multitenancy is so typically described as a key characteristic.

Cloud computing and Multitenancy

Cloud computing presents corporations many advantages, together with scalability of assets and cost-effectiveness. With cloud computing, you possibly can ship infrastructure to community architects, platforms to software program builders, and software program to finish customers.

Multitenancy is a key characteristic of cloud computing. In cloud computing, multitenancy permits a number of prospects of a cloud supplier to make use of the identical computing assets whereas retaining their knowledge remoted and inaccessible to different prospects.

In the present day, most functions are delivered to prospects and finish customers through the cloud as software program as a service (SaaS). This permits many finish customers to entry this software program irrespective of their location or sort of gadget. SaaS is supported by multitenancy — it ensures a consumer entry to a single utility by permitting them to handle their interface with out affecting different customers.

Now we perceive why multitenancy is taken into account a key characteristic in cloud computing, let’s additional discover the mechanics of multitenancy by discussing the way it differs from single tenancy.

Single-Tenant vs. Multi-Tenant

Multitenancy is a brand new idea for distributing analytics to prospects that replaces conventional single-tenant analytics.

With single tenancy, an analytics platform is distributed to every tenant individually:  Separate analytics situations are put in on every tenant’s gadget, and particular person, custom-made analytics are arrange. This contains creating consumer accounts, connecting knowledge sources, and creating metrics and dashboards which can’t be accessed by different tenants. The result’s an remoted atmosphere that ensures excessive knowledge safety and privateness. Every tenant is liable for managing their very own analytics on their devoted gadget as they want.

With multitenancy, every tenant shares the identical analytics platform, however they’ve outlined, particular consumer roles and entry rights to be able to entry completely different working environments by way of a single deployment. One working atmosphere may be accessed by a person tenant or group of tenants to handle analytics, create metrics and dashboards, or just view pre-created dashboards to achieve related info to tell their enterprise selections.

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In relation to analytics, the principle distinction between single tenancy and multitenancy is:

• Single tenancy gives an remoted atmosphere deployed individually for every tenant.
• Multitenancy makes use of a shared platform to serve a number of tenants; these tenants obtain outlined consumer roles and entry rights to their devoted environments to handle their analytics interface.

What Is Multi-Tenant Structure?

Any dialogue of multitenancy can be incomplete with out touching upon multi-tenant structure. Whereas multitenancy is an idea for implementing a multi-tenant resolution, multi-tenant structure refers to a selected design of software program structure that may serve a number of customers inside one software program occasion.

Multi-tenant structure helps with the creation of an environment friendly multi-tenant atmosphere. Within the case of multi-tenant analytics, one platform makes use of a shared atmosphere that permits centralized knowledge evaluation and reporting. This permits a number of customers and consumer teams to entry a shared knowledge mannequin, metrics, visualizations, and dashboards whereas sustaining their knowledge privateness.

What Does a Multi-Tenant Surroundings Look Like?

The principle aspect of a multi-tenant atmosphere is a workspace. It is a devoted house the place tenants can handle, analyze, and visualize their knowledge. It incorporates knowledge sources, logical knowledge fashions, metrics, visualizations, and dashboards. To realize a multi-tenant atmosphere, workspaces should be organized in a so-called workspace hierarchy. A workspace hierarchy incorporates two forms of workspace:

1. The mother or father workspace serves as a template for the kid workspaces. This workspace incorporates an information mannequin, the entire metrics, and dashboards that may be shared with the linked youngster workspaces. No finish customers are given entry to this grasp workspace.
2. The kid workspace is tenant-facing. It’s the house the place finish customers, prospects, or purchasers work with their dashboards. The kid workspace incorporates the info mannequin, core metrics, and dashboards inherited from the grasp workspace, however every youngster workspace incorporates completely different knowledge. Finish customers within the youngster workspace could create their very own metrics (on high of these supplied by the grasp workspace) and their very own dashboards, all with out affecting the grasp workspace.

This multi-tenant structure lets you push updates from the grasp workspace to any of its youngster workspaces. Moreover, you possibly can simply reuse workspaces, create copies of workspaces, and modify them to accommodate the wants of various groups, enterprise companions, prospects, or purchasers.

Apart from metrics and dashboards, one other essential facet of workspaces is knowledge. Displaying what knowledge belongs to which youngster workspace is achieved through knowledge filters. Knowledge filters help you restrict the info accessible in youngster workspaces. By setting an information filter, the info visibility may be outlined for every youngster workspace.

Knowledge in every workspace is totally remoted from workspaces that belong to different tenants, guaranteeing knowledge safety and privateness for every tenant.

Kinds of Multitenancy

As a result of there are completely different use circumstances related to consumer necessities, multitenancy can take completely different kinds. There are a number of prospects accessible to multi-tenant resolution suppliers by way of how they’ll implement a multi-tenant atmosphere of their product.

Throughout the multi-tenant atmosphere of an analytics platform, tenants can entry knowledge sources and workspaces to research knowledge. Multi-tenant structure may be applied within the following methods:

• One knowledge supply for every tenant: Every tenant has a devoted workspace the place they’ll hook up with their separate knowledge supply and handle their analytics interface as required.
• Single knowledge supply, a number of schemas: Tenants entry the identical knowledge supply, however every tenant has their very own workspace the place they’ve a separate schema — which is a related a part of the general knowledge mannequin — and might work with it.
• Single knowledge supply, shared schema: All tenants entry the identical knowledge supply and use the identical logical knowledge mannequin. Nevertheless, of their workspace, they solely handle related knowledge that’s filtered from the complete knowledge supply — for instance, based mostly on area, department, or division.

The diagram under illustrates the three completely different strategies of multi-tenant structure implementation. Observe {that a} tenant may be a person consumer or a consumer group.

Key Options of Multitenancy

Every multi-tenant resolution that’s based mostly on the idea of multitenancy ought to have the next options:

• Shared infrastructure: Serves a number of prospects with a single occasion of an analytics platform, whereas sustaining tenant isolation. This contains sharing the identical knowledge sources linked to the analytics platform, in addition to the identical metrics, visualization components, and dashboards.
• Tenant isolation: Every tenant is supplied with entry to a devoted house the place they’ll analyze their knowledge and consider their dashboards. This house can both be separated from different tenants’ entry or accessible to a certified consumer group; the place every tenant is restricted by their assigned function to be able to handle the analytics atmosphere.
• Customization: Tenants can customise the analytics atmosphere to satisfy their particular wants and preferences by organising distinctive configurations, choices, and branding. This is a vital characteristic because it permits tenants to successfully use the shared multi-tenant analytics platform for his or her particular use circumstances, corresponding to filtering knowledge by completely different branches or places and creating specified metrics and dashboards.
• Scalability: Ensures that the analytics platform can accommodate progress with out changing into overwhelmed or experiencing degradation in efficiency. Multi-tenant structure for analytics ought to be capable to deal with growing numbers of tenants and mechanically allocate assets as wanted.
• Centralized administration: Helps to handle a number of tenants and analytics setups from a single level of management through a single analytics interface. Adjustments made to knowledge sources, knowledge, metrics, and dashboards within the grasp workspace are mechanically mirrored in all youngster workspaces. This course of simplifies upkeep and reduces the necessity for guide setups for every tenant, making it simpler for the supplier to handle the complete multi-tenant atmosphere and remotely assign entry and roles to tenants.

What Is Multi-Tenant Safety?

As you possibly can think about, with a number of tenants accessing numerous workspaces, safety turns into paramount. Multi-tenant safety refers back to the measures put in place to make sure the safety and privateness of every tenant’s knowledge and assets inside one workspace in a multi-tenant atmosphere.

Multi-tenant safety contains:

• Managing customers and consumer teams: This entails guaranteeing that every consumer or consumer group solely has entry to the info and assets related to them. Assigning devoted credentials to every consumer or consumer group ensures that solely authenticated and approved customers can entry their designated workspace.
• Managing permissions: This entails setting permissions for various customers and consumer teams. Permissions may be set for objects corresponding to knowledge sources and workspaces utilizing particular permission varieties, corresponding to “handle,” “view,” “analyze,” or “use.”

How To Implement a Multi-Tenant Surroundings

Organising a multi-tenant atmosphere can really feel like a posh course of, consisting of implementing a multi-tenant structure, making a workspace hierarchy, consumer and consumer group administration, and extra. To simplify the steps required, we’ve created the information under:

1. Select an analytics platform with built-in multi-tenant functionality: Make sure the platform helps a number of tenants, knowledge isolation, consumer group administration, and different consumer necessities.
2. Create a grasp workspace: Join knowledge sources to the grasp workspace, generate logical knowledge fashions, and create the principle metrics, visualizations, and dashboards.
3. Construct a workspace hierarchy: Create youngster workspaces. This additionally defines the relationships between particular person customers and consumer teams.
4. Create knowledge filters: From the grasp workspace, arrange knowledge filters to limit entry to particular knowledge inside youngster workspaces.
5. Handle customers and consumer teams: Assign customers to the suitable consumer group, enabling them to entry particular workspaces.
6. Handle permissions to those customers and consumer teams: Outline the extent of entry every consumer and consumer group has to particular knowledge sources and workspaces. Arrange permissions for various objects corresponding to knowledge sources and workspaces.

How To Scale With Multitenancy

As soon as a multi-tenant atmosphere has been applied it could at all times be modified sooner or later. As knowledge quantity will increase, the variety of customers grows, and new use circumstances are revealed, multitenancy lets you simply scale your analytics platform to accommodate these adjustments.

Scaling alternatives inside a multi-tenant structure embrace:

• Scaling knowledge storage: Rising the storage capability, both by upgrading {hardware} parts in an on-premises system by way of vertical scaling, or by including extra nodes to a cloud storage system by way of horizontal scaling. It is very important be certain that the appliance is able to dealing with the elevated knowledge quantity.
• Scaling consumer base: Scaling the appliance interface by including or eradicating separate customers or consumer teams, no matter their geographic location.
• Scaling amongst use circumstances: Adapting the multi-tenant utility to deal with a wide range of conditions and use circumstances, corresponding to embedding its elements into customized functions or net functions, integrating it with completely different communication instruments, or accessing it by way of APIs or developer interfaces.

A multi-tenant resolution is a good possibility for corporations that function in a dynamic atmosphere, because the structure is very adaptable to adjustments within the quantity and wishes of customers, providing each flexibility and scalability. This flexibility additionally extends to the forms of corporations that may reap the benefits of multitenancy, as you’ll see under.

Multi-Tenant Answer Use Instances

To serve the wants of their prospects, suppliers provide multi-tenant environments constructed on a multitenancy idea inside a single analytics platform.

Finish customers of a multi-tenant analytics resolution may be:

• Firms with a number of branches and stakeholders from completely different places, permitting for centralized knowledge administration and entry to shared assets.
• Small to medium-sized corporations from the identical location.
• Knowledge-driven corporations that require centralized knowledge storage linked to their analytics platform, distributed to particular person customers and teams.
• Firms that function within the B2B market, because it permits them to supply a custom-made model of their pre-purchase resolution from different distributors for every buyer.

A multi-tenant analytics resolution can be utilized in any sort of business, however it’s particularly acceptable for industries corresponding to e-commerce, monetary companies, healthcare, insurance coverage, software program corporations, manufacturing, and logistics.

The Pricing Mannequin for a Multi-Tenant Answer

In analytics with single-architecture deployment, corporations pay charges based mostly on the variety of finish customers. Nevertheless, because the enterprise atmosphere is continually altering, corporations typically discover it tough to foretell their future consumer base. Because of this, the standard ‘per-user’ pricing mannequin is probably not efficient.

In distinction, a multi-tenant analytics resolution makes use of the per-workspace pricing mannequin. Along with the common charges for renting the analytics platform, the per-workspace mannequin fees a set payment for every workspace used, whatever the variety of customers or exercise inside that workspace. This mannequin is an effective match for:

• Multi-tenant options designed to have separate workspaces for every crew/division.
• Firms within the B2B market that must ship analytics to prospects however cannot predict their consumer base.

Benefits and Disadvantages of Multitenancy

Multitenancy in analytics may be the correct resolution for corporations to satisfy their calls for. When correctly deliberate, designed, and managed, a multi-tenant resolution can deliver quite a few benefits to organizations and assist them to realize their objectives. These benefits embrace:

• Decrease prices in comparison with single-tenant analytics platforms (as there isn’t a must pay for separate variations for every consumer).
• Streamlined onboarding and offboarding of tenants to and from their respective workspaces inside a shared analytics deployment, with tenant isolation and analytics efficiency preserved.
• Improved safety by way of remoted tenant knowledge and managed entry, managed by way of permission administration and consumer entry.
• Simplified upkeep, with a single codebase and a parent-child relationship between workspaces.
• Streamlined deployment by way of lowered guide setup, making it simpler and quicker so as to add new customers by making a separate workspace or including a brand new consumer to an present consumer group.

Observe, nonetheless, that multitenancy does have its disadvantages:

• Elevated system complexity with the necessity for extra logic for tenant separation, knowledge filtering, and tenant identification.
• Elevated consideration to cautious design and administration required to make sure tenant isolation and safe knowledge storage.
• Restricted management over the analytics atmosphere as a result of shared platform, and potential provider-imposed limitations or restrictions.
• Elevated dependence on the supplier for upkeep and upgrades, requiring tenants to decide on a good and dependable supplier.

Firms should weigh the potential advantages and disadvantages of implementing a multi-tenant resolution, guaranteeing it meets their particular wants. To succeed, you will need to perceive the workings of multi-tenant analytics in a company atmosphere, in addition to the necessities for correct setup and implementation.

Examples of Multitenancy

For a greater understanding of multitenancy, it may be useful to contemplate some well-known examples which might be present in cloud environments and used as Software program-as-a-Service (SaaS) functions. These embrace Gmail for studying and sending emails, Zoom for on-line conferences, Google Docs for doc storage and sharing, Adobe Inventive Cloud for graphic design, and Netflix for streaming motion pictures and TV exhibits.

A wonderful instance of multitenancy in analytics is GoodData’s analytics platform, which presents a user-friendly multi-tenant atmosphere for managing analytics.

Multitenancy in GoodData

The GoodData analytics platform is designed to satisfy the wants of multi-tenant analytics functions. This strategy is supported by its potential to hook up with numerous database suppliers. GoodData promotes the usage of APIs to arrange your analytics, create metrics and dashboards, and implement a multi-tenant structure on your functions, moderately than counting on a consumer interface.

GoodData’s multitenancy can profit prospects by:

• Offering an analytics interface to separate customers and consumer teams inside or outdoors the corporate.
• Delivering analytics to customers shortly and simply; each change within the mother or father workspace is mechanically mirrored within the youngster workspaces
• Offering self-service analytics for customers with out technical abilities, permitting them to make queries and stories with out the help of information groups
• Embedding analytics into prospects’ functions and platforms, offering customers with entry to knowledge and insights inside their most well-liked instruments
• Organising a multi-tenant structure by way of a sturdy API that permits for automation and streamlined administration of the multi-tenant atmosphere

To realize an efficient multi-tenant analytics resolution, prospects can join GoodData’s platform to numerous knowledge sources, together with the well-known databases Snowflake and PostgreSQL.

In the end, GoodData is a robust multi-tenant analytics resolution, providing scalability, safety, knowledge warehousing capabilities, and integration choices.

Prepared To Get Began With Multitenancy?

Inquisitive about gaining first-hand expertise with a multi-tenant atmosphere? To see how GoodData offers with multi-tenant analytics, begin a free trial or request a demo.

Uncover Extra About Multitenancy

Need to be taught extra about multitenancy? We have now a number of different free assets accessible. A few of our favorites embrace:

Multitenancy in GoodData

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