Cloud multi-tenancy is now possible in Microsoft Office 365. By integrating the stand-alone platform Intune, Microsoft tenant management is made easy. With the updated admin center, this SaaS (software as a service) is empowered to manage multiple mailboxes and user accounts, monitor statistics, configure the cloud environment of Office 365, view the Intune tenant status page, and more.
Microsoft Intune is a cloud-based mobile device management solution that helps organizations manage and secure devices. It includes features such as device management, app management, data protection, and more. The Intune tenant page is where you can locate the essential data details of tenants. This centralized hub displays the tenant name and address, licensed users and enrolled devices, and service release versions. It also lets you view the status of configured Intune connectors, Intune service health messages, and Intune communications to tenants.
What is multi-tenancy?
Multi-tenancy is the term used for a software architecture that serves multiple user groups. In the Information Technology world, multi-tenancy is “timeshare,” a different cloud computing standard where a vendor like Simeon Cloud can seamlessly share its hosting server and software resources with multiple clients. Each client is called a tenant.
How does it work?
Managing multiple tenants in Office 365 makes it possible for a single instance of a software application to run on its server and lets numerous tenants operate in the shared environment. Physically, tenants are together but separated logically. With Microsoft 365 configuration management, the software application in multi-tenant architecture is enjoyed simultaneously by cloud tenants.
Key benefits of multi-tenancy
- Cost-effective solution: Multi-tenancy in cloud computing is like sharing a ride, which means it is a cheaper option. You will only pay for the services you need or a fraction of the total operating cost. The cloud host will take care of the labor, maintenance, updates, upgrades, and development. You don’t need to pay the administration and monitoring fees.
- Flexible and scalable: Tenants can customize the services by adding or removing necessary resources. It promotes optimal use of required resources.
- Secure and private: While the single tenancy is considered more private and safe, multi-tenancy offers effective threat detection. It also keeps the resources of every tenant separated from each other.
Risks of multi-tenancy
- Security concerns – Using this model may entail a slight exposure of the tenants’ data to third parties during an accidental breach in the system, like a software bug or malfunction. When it happens, the architecture becomes vulnerable to the hacking of data. Security risks are mitigated by the level of Microsoft 365 configuration management safety measures. It is also crucial to have a backup of all data is also vital to avoid losing or corrupting them.
- Downtime and response time issues – The host decides when to do maintenance or upgrades. Also, when some tenants consume substantial CPU cycles, this can slow down others’ processing time.
Takeaway
While Intune multi-tenancy offers more convenience, it can be a bit complicated for the host. To keep everything right, the practice of backing up files is essential, as well as using the best Microsoft 365 configuration management tool.