Multi Tenant Architecture vs Single Tenant Software Architecture

First, lets talk about What exactly Multi-tenant and Single Tenants Architecture,As name suggest, Multi-tenant Software as a Service (SaaS) is an architecture where multiple companies share the same instance to store their data.  This instance is typically divided (or partitioned) to prevent the companies from accessing each other’s information. This is like high-rise building where the floor plans are generally set but minor cosmetic changes can be made to the individual units. Significant change comes at a much higher cost, On the Other hand,

Single-tenant (or hosted) Software as a Service (SaaS) is an architecture where each company has their own instance of the software application and supporting infrastructure. Think of it like a neighborhood community developed by the same architect and engineer where each household has the ability to change and customize their property as desired. By having a single hosted instance the purchaser can tweak and customize the software to meet their needs.

Now we have exact definition with example of High rise building and Individual Community, we can immediately compare all benefits and drawbacks with our real time challenges.

a) If Customer decides to run the cloud on-premise, they must bear the costs of the whole system alone.
b) A single-tenant system is generally more expensive than a multi-tenant solution.
c) A single-tenant system is generally not the most efficient use of resources, unless it’s fully loaded. For each instance, the underlying software, such as the operating system and run time libraries, must be updated.

Benefits of Multiple Tenant SaaS

a) Hardware and Power Economy – A major benefit to multi-tenant is on the cost side. With resource pooling, there are considerable savings in hardware and power. With single tenancy, a separate physical or virtual machine needs to be “spun up” for each customer.

b) Effort to Upgrade – Multi-tenancy has forced upgrades to be seamless, as upgrades can’t require any level of per customer intervention when thousands of customers are upgraded simultaneously.

c) Backups and Redundancy – Creating that level of redundancy would be a lot more technically challenging if tens of thousands of customers each had their own virtual server in each of two data centers.

Drawbacks of Multi-tenant Architecture

a) Less Customization: As a result of multiple tenants running their business off the same code and database, individual businesses have virtually no ability to customize the software to their specific needs

b) Less Authorization and Time Delay: Changes to the software application could be made and deployed to your business without authorization as you are relying on the same code base as the other (potentially larger) tenants. In addition, future features / functionality could be delayed or removed from the product road map as multi-tenant SaaS providers typically focus on the feature requests (and bugs) submitted by their largest customers

Benefits of Single Tenant SaaS

a) Maximum privacy: There is only one instance for a user, there’s less risk of another business either accidentally or through corporate espionage snooping on data that doesn’t belong to them.

b) It’s impossible to affect someone else’s tasks. Single-tenant solutions are more popular with enterprise businesses.

c) Jobs with intensive computing requirements can make full use of the system.

Drawbacks of Single Tenant SaaS:

a) If Customer decides to run the cloud on-premise, they must bear the costs of the whole system alone.
b) A single-tenant system is generally more expensive than a multi-tenant solution.
c) A single-tenant system is generally not the most efficient use of resources, unless it’s fully loaded. For each instance, the underlying software, such as the operating system and run time libraries, must be updated.