Multiple advantages of multi-tenant deployments

Multi-tenancy is a typical approach for cloud solution providers. But we often see customers being reluctant to elect for multi-tenant deployments when they have the single-tenant option. In this blog post, I will discuss the benefits of a multi-tenant deployment.

Multi-tenant architecture

While single tenant provides each customer with a distinct software instance running on infrastructure that is not shared with other users, multi-tenant uses a shared infrastructure to provide access to a cloud-based solution for multiple customers. It is a software architecture where multiple instances of an application run on the same infrastructure. The infrastructure is then responsible for serving multiple tenants simultaneously, enabling multiple user groups access to one instance of an application or system. The users share the infrastructure resources while each tenant is completely isolated and has no access to other's data. 

TetraScience and multi-tenant deployments

‍“We observe a clear trend towards multi tenancy. While only about 25% of our legacy customers opted for a multi-tenant deployment, it is over 60% of our current installations. All our customers who have been onboarded in the last few quarters have opted for a multi-tenant deployment.” -Naveen Kondapalli, SVP Products & Engineering

Tetra Data Platform

The Tetra Data Platform (TDP) is a single instance of TDP in a dedicated Amazon Web Services (AWS) account. Each deployment can be provisioned on single- or multi-tenant infrastructure and each entity in the TDP infrastructure provides isolation of users, data, and workflows. Customers typically have two or three deployments depending on their processes. Their processes might require development, test, and production deployments, often in a GxP environment.

Multi-tenancy advantages

We typically recommend multi-tenant deployments as they come along with significant advantages for customers.

Reduced total cost of ownership (TCO)

A multi-tenant cloud architecture is usually more cost-efficient than single-tenant. The infrastructure and the cost of a single environment (i.e. hardware, software, and maintenance) is shared by all the tenants. Customers do not need to allocate any internal resources to manage and maintain the environment.

Faster access to new releases

A multi-tenant deployment gives customers immediate access to new features once the software is released. Naturally they can also delay the update when their environment is GxP regulated and they need to validate the production system before.

Faster time to resolution

The provider of a multi-tenant environment has access to the system to troubleshoot any issues. This reduces the turnaround time for the support and reduces the operational burden of the customer. 

Scalability

Cloud deployment is highly scalable where customers only use the resources they need. Customers don’t need to plan the purchase and onward maintenance of an extension to their environments; they simply request an expansion of their current deployment. And if a company needs to scale down, they can easily reduce the size of the deployment to avoid unused server capacity.

Increased security

Multi-tenancy is secure, especially when maintained by an experienced service provider like TetraScience leveraging AWS. Customer-hosted environments depend on their internal expertise, while reliance on TetraScience’s security team provides effective threat and intruder detection and prevention.  

TetraScience executes the following security operations for our customers:

• Cloud infrastructure entitlement management (AWS roles and privileges for the environment)
• Cloud security posture monitoring (AWS misconfigurations could lead to security issues or compliance risks related to the environment)
• Intrusion and anomaly detection (threats potentially targeting the environment)
• Incident response (active response to threats targeting the environment)

Summary

Multi-tenant is the typical approach for cloud deployments and is increasingly the tenancy of choice for biopharmaceutical companies. Customers can benefit from reduced total cost of ownership (TCO), faster access to new releases, faster turnaround time, scalability, and high security of their environment. TetraScience supports multi-tenant customers with the execution of key security operations and provides the required architecture for GxP regulated organizations.

‍Contact our experts to learn more!