Multi-Tenant
What is a Multi-Tenant Platform?
A multi-tenant environment is a software or cloud architecture in which a single software instance serves multiple user groups (tenants). They share the resources, and only one system needs to be managed. This delivers advantages, especially for small to mid-sized organizations, compared with the alternative, a single-tenant platform. HelloID, for example, is a multi-tenant cloud solution that manages accounts and access rights for multiple organizations from a single platform. In this article, we explain the multi-tenant cloud approach in more detail. We describe the concept, outline the benefits, and focus specifically on using a multi-tenant solution for your Identity and Access Management.
Multi-Tenant Versus Single-Tenant?
When implementing a cloud solution, you generally choose between two delivery models: multi-tenant or single-tenant.
In a multi-tenant solution, customers share a single platform. The service provider manages that platform centrally and continues to develop it. Each customer is a tenant (like a renter) and has access to the same functionality, updates, and configuration options. Customer data remains strictly segregated.
The provider handles application management, capacity planning, and performance management. The service provider also guarantees availability. The customer does not have to worry about these technical administration tasks and can focus entirely on functional use. For most organizations, a multi-tenant cloud solution is therefore ideal. They consume the functionality as Software as a Service (SaaS), often paying a monthly fee per user.
Larger organizations, such as multinationals or government ministries, sometimes prefer a single-tenant solution. In that model, a cloud provider manages a separate application platform for one specific customer. This gives the customer more control over usage and settings and provides more room to add custom software. The downside is more complex management and higher associated costs. Even so, this can produce a strong business case for some large enterprises. Examples include when a business system is truly mission-critical, when full control over roadmap and evolution is required, or when data must be physically isolated.
Multi-Tenant Benefits
We already see that more and more customers prefer multi-tenant services. We briefly mentioned several advantages. Below, we examine those benefits in more detail:
Cost Savings: Because multiple customers (tenants) share the same infrastructure, resources are used more efficiently, resulting in lower per-user costs. Platform management is also shared across customers, reducing operational costs per customer.
Rapid Implementation: Because customers are onboarded to an existing platform, they can become operational quickly. No customer-specific installation is required. A new tenant only needs to be configured.
Scalability: As a customer, you can add users easily without investing in new infrastructure. This is reflected in pay-as-you-go pricing models, where you pay a monthly amount per user.
Simplified Maintenance: The platform runs a single version of the software, so updates and bug fixes are applied to all tenants at once. There are no inconsistencies between versions, and the customer can focus entirely on functional administration.
Centralized Security and Compliance: The platform and all data are managed centrally, and security measures can be implemented centrally as well. The service provider can readily demonstrate that the service is compliant with relevant security and privacy regulations.
Faster Innovation: Because a single version of the software is used, the development team can focus fully on it. They do not have to maintain and evolve multiple versions.
Considerations For Your Multi-Tenant IAM Solution
For IAM functionality as well, more organizations prefer a multi-tenant solution. This removes the need to manage technical and operational issues. They can focus entirely on the functional administration of accounts and access rights. HelloID is a prominent example of such a multi-tenant IAM environment.
With this Identity-as-a-Service (IDaaS) solution, you benefit from common multi-tenant advantages, such as cost efficiency and simplified management. At the same time, the platform provides sufficient flexibility for each customer to tailor the setup. A few examples:
User provisioning can be fully automated and configured as desired. The software is standard, but based on business rules, each customer can define which users receive which accounts and permissions, and when.
The same applies to service processes. For each type of administrative request, you can configure customer-specific, user-friendly management screens. You can also enable self-service capabilities as needed. With customizable workflows, you ensure that, when required, the relevant manager(s) must review and approve requests online first.
Thanks to an extensive catalog of connectors, you can connect about 200 different applications to the IAM platform without modifying the software.
This provides your organization with all the benefits of a multi-tenant IAM environment while still offering ample options to customize functionality to your requirements and preferences.
Access Management For Multi-Tenant Applications
In practice, most organizations now use multiple multi-tenant applications. Microsoft 365 is widely used, and Salesforce, along with many other business applications, is also offered as a multi-tenant cloud solution today. As an organization, you want to harmonize access to those applications and manage them uniformly. An IAM platform like HelloID plays an important role in this multi-tenant authentication.
By managing all accounts and access rights from a single IAM environment, you ensure that the same rules and processes are used across your multi-cloud environment. You have a single platform for managing accounts and permissions across multiple cloud environments. You do so in accordance with uniform business rules, regardless of the cloud provider. The IAM platform provides seamless integration with the various multi-tenant applications. From the central platform, you always have an overview of all permission settings across all connected cloud applications. This is not limited to multi-tenant applications. You can also manage single-tenant applications and any remaining on-premises systems with HelloID.
Want to Learn More?
In this blog, we covered different migration scenarios for moving from on-premises Identity & Access Management (IAM) to the cloud. The scenarios ranged from rehosting an existing solution to a replacement strategy that moves to an Identity-as-a-Service (IDaaS) environment. In such an IDaaS environment, multiple customers share one environment, so you automatically choose a multi-tenant solution. In that blog, we explore that choice in more detail and provide additional tips and considerations for your IAM migration plans.