Design a multi-tenant application architecture and meet your user’s requirements efficiently. Let’s explore how multitenancy lets you build scalable software.
Overview
Welcome to another blog post in the category of programming. We are going to discuss a multi-tenant application architecture. In fact, containerize.com has a wide range of multi-tenant apps in its open-source product stack. The open-source multi-tenant applications include Form.IO, Botpress, and more. In addition, there is complete documentation available regarding the architecture, deployment, development, and usage of these open-source software. The reason behind writing this article is to give an understanding of the concept behind multi-tenancy in software development. So, let’s find out What is Multitenancy? We will also go through the pros and cons of multitenancy and multi-tenant vs single-tenant architecture.
The following points will be discussed in this post:
- What is Multitenancy? Multi-Tenant vs Single-Tenant
- Types of Multi-Tenant Application Architecture
- Business Benefits of Multi-Tenant App
- Drawbacks in Multi-Tenancy
What is Multitenancy? Multi-Tenant vs Single-Tenant
Multitenancy refers to a single server instance serving multiple front-ends particularly known tenants. Whenever you come across a multi-tenant software just tell your brain that this software is running a single instance of a shared server and multiple tenants(clients) are connected to this instance with different brandings.
For example, software built for a university serves different departments having different front-end brandings and program data. Basically, there is a single instance of the server running and serving all the tenants. In addition, there is data separation and data privacy among all the tenants. Moreover, every tenant has its own business logic and fetches and stores its data in a single but private/isolated location.
Now, let’s take a quick look at single-tenant architecture. In single-tenant architecture, there is one server instance per tenant. Again, let’s take an example of university software. The single-tenant approach refers to one server instance per department and the number of instances depends on the number of departments(tenants).
Types of Multi-Tenant Application Architecture
So far, you have an understanding of multi-tenancy and now we will go through its various types.
One Database – One App Instance: This approach is quite popular and has been widely used to build multi-tenant apps. As per this approach, there is one application instance running with a single database. In addition, there is a shared schema and the tenant’s data is stored in a single location against their unique ID.
Multiple Database – One App Instance: In this multi-tenant application architecture, only one instance of the application runs with multiple databases. Every tenant has its own database schema where all the information is saved per each tenant separately.
Multiple Database – Multiple App Instances: The third approach refers to running multiple server instances along with multiple databases. There is nothing shared and each tenant has complete isolation and there is no dependency among tenants.
Business Benefits of Multi-Tenant App
In this section, we will go through some prominent benefits of opting for multitenancy. Although, we can go long discussing the perks but let’s see the following points:
Scalability: It is easy to scale a multi-tenant architecture. You can scale horizontally or vertically regardless of the type you have chosen.
Cost-Effective: Opting for multitenancy saves your operational costs. There are shared resources so it is always cost-effective to scale up the resources.
Efficiency & Flexibility: In a multitenant environment, you achieve efficiency in development and deployment. For example, you can run a script on a shared database schema to update all the tenants.
Better Resource Management: Adding, and removing resources is straightforward. Further, this architecture offers improved and well-managed infrastructure. Moreover, every tenant is private, and secure and has access to a shared/non-shared database.
Drawbacks in Multi-Tenancy
The purpose of this blog post is to give a fair sense of multi-tenant architecture. Therefore, let’s explore some of the cons attached to multi-tenancy.
Complex Authentication Mechanism: Due to the shared nature of resource allocation in multitenancy, there are strict protocols for data access points.
Server Breakdown: It is a major point to consider while selecting multi-tenant application architecture. All the tenants become non-functional whenever the server is down due to any reason.
Privacy Risk: In a multi-tenant architecture, there is a high-risk of security breach. In fact, the data of all tenants are stored in a shared database so any third-party invasion could result in data corruption or theft.
Conclusion
We are ending this blog post here. Does this article have the answer to your questions such as What is multitenancy? In addition, we also have explored multi-tenant vs single-tenant infrastructure. Moreover, this guide will assist you when opting for multi-tenant application architecture or a single tenant. Above all, multitenancy is the first choice if you are building a SaaS. There are other interesting blog posts that you may find in the “See Also” section which will give you the latest insights into the tech world.
Finally, containerize.com is continuously writing blog posts on further open-source products and topics. Moreover, you can follow us on our social media accounts Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter.
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FAQs
What is multi-tenant with example?
Please visit this link to know what is multitenancy. There are details along with examples.
What is the meaning of multi-tenant architecture?
A multi-tenant application architecture means a single instance of a server serves multiple tenants(clients). Please navigate to this link for further details.