Cloud Computing and Multitenancy : Rhymes With Risks

Cloud Computing and Multitenancy has relationship. Both relies on using a single resource and distribution to multiple clients. Risk in both cases depends. The concept of multitenancy should not be confused with that of multiinstance architecture where separate software instances or separate hardware systems are available in different organizations. Physically they are separated in the second case.

Cloud Computing and Multitenancy

Comparison is only possible when there is some similarity, so is for Cloud Computing and Multitenancy. Even if we use virtualization technology of today’s Red Hat, each server can serve a few users on it compared to a multitenant system. Beyond their efficiency, multitenant services can scale easily and by using them you can reduce costs for both the supplier and the customer. Multitenancy if services such as for Facebook, have been able to grow so quickly at the time of their first development to the increase the number users in millions in a short time. In the field of business services salesforce.com is another famous example of multitenancy. For businesses, institutions usually have stricter requirements for the consumers, a multitenant cloud computing platform is full of disadvantages. And developers of these companies has made the idea even worse for several reasons.

Cloud Computing and Multitenancy : Risks and Reason to Go Worser

Suppose you want to have the guarantee that your Gmail account rests only on servers physically located in the United States for legal reasons. It is very difficult, if not impossible, to ensure this with a multitenant platform. Data privacy laws vary widely from state to state, and cloud computing applications often must be performed by data centers located in different countries.

Cloud Computing platform vendors argue that their software if executed properly, will insulate all user data by configuring the information necessary to access differently for each user, but there is always the lurking risk of hitting errors and mistakes of human.

Dragging in other critical case, assume that a hacker is able to break the encryption of a database managed by a provider of a cloud computing service. If it is a multitenant, there is the possibility that the hacker is able to steal data from dozens or hundreds of different business customers, all stored in the same database.

Cloud Computing and Multitenancy : Conclusion

For many companies and developers, it make more sense to adapt to cloud computing platforms that provide a wide range of choice between functionality enabling the traditional relational database, security and flexibility allows single-tenant software and the flexibility in pricing models of the service.