Multi-tenancy no longer limited to MSP arena

BIG MULTINATIONAL COMPANIES traditionally use many different solutions to support and manage their infrastructure. They may for example use solution “A” for backup and recovery in one country, solution “B” in another region and solution “C” in one specific department. This has led to a proliferation of products for the same tasks and has limited an organisation’s ability to get a global view of what is happening across their IT infrastructure. Global insight, however, is becoming increasingly important in the face of international competition and the heightened need to be compliant. Limited insight can be solved by deploying a multi-tenancy solution which can support a company in two specific ways:

£ A true multi-tenancy solution will provide a single platform for
global data, for example, as well as information management or
security. It offers the CIO a comprehensive view of the IT
environment and enables the IT department to focus on services
instead of managing hardware and software.

£ At the same time, the solution provides a department, facility
or office with all the features of a purpose-made product, giving IT
managers in any location the impression or confidence that they
are working with their own tailor-made platform.

Directory services
One of the main features of a multi-tenancy management solution is the ability to integrate with Directory Services. This enhances security and usability significantly. A system manager can establish rights at a granular level for each user and, for example, determine which users can restore a specific database and who has access to a production system. This is especially important as IT systems are becoming increasingly complex and compliancy is an important issue for all companies. Tight integration with Active Director also prevents the proliferation of generic admin accounts, used by various system managers. This is a well known practice in IT, but it makes it impossible to track and audit changes. By integrating the management solution with Directory Services system, managers always log in with their own account and as a result can always be tracked and traced.

Charge back
A second important feature of a multi-tenant solution and one that particularly addresses the current needs of many organisations is charge back capabilities. Whereas MSPs need this capability to charge their individual clients, an enterprise can use this feature to give internal clients insight into their use of IT or to charge departments internally. It also enables companies to offer departments more freedom of choice with regard to their IT investments. They know what they spend and can decide themselves which solutions they want to invest in in order to reach their business goals.

Control
The third feature is focused on control. As pointed out earlier, multi-tenancy provides a single platform that can be adapted to suit the specific purpose of individual locations or departments as their own separate solution. This means that the solution must provide a means for a granular set-up, enabling an organisation, for example, to deliver specific views of departments’ IT infrastructure. This does not only enhance the quality of systems management, but will also contribute to the commitment of the IT staff. When they are able to focus on their own dedicated systems, instead of having to go through tens or hundreds of servers to find their own systems, they will definitely make less mistakes and feel like they are more in control.

The IT world is changing from a focus on physical infrastructure to virtualised yet very real services. MSPs lead the way by deploying new, converged infrastructures that fully profit from virtualisation and multi-tenancy solutions. They no longer deliver hardware or software, only services. However, in the enterprise world, IT departments are also looking for ways to make this shift to a services-oriented organisation. They can also profit from the multi-tenancy approach that is already widely used in the MSP arena. It will provide them with the global insight in IT they need, whilst offering sufficient room to deliver a local touch. In the end, it should also enable them to become a true services organisation.