Multi-tenant SaaS Deployment with Tenant-Specific Isolation Constraints
Find Innovative SolutionsGenerate Solutions
Solution Overview
Problem
In Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) multi-tenancy applications, customers are hesitant to share infrastructure or data with other tenants due to concerns about data security and access risks, which existing isolation methods have not adequately addressed.
Innovation Solution
A computer-implemented method that categorizes tenants into groups, allowing each tenant to specify deployment constraints for application components and infrastructure, enabling them to include or exclude other tenants from sharing resources, and determines a valid deployment configuration based on these constraints to optimize resource utilization and security.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Productivity
If multi-tenancy is implemented to share infrastructure and application code among multiple tenants, then operational costs are reduced and resource utilization is improved, but data security and tenant isolation are compromised due to shared infrastructure risks
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments the multi-tenancy architecture into multiple isolation levels: infrastructure sharing (virtualization layer), application component sharing (with deployment constraints), and data isolation (with tenant-specific configurations). This segmentation allows simultaneous resource sharing and security protection by dividing the system into manageable isolation zones.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent applies local quality by allowing different tenants to have different deployment constraints and isolation requirements for different application components. Each tenant can specify which components should be shared and which should be isolated, enabling customized security levels for different parts of the system rather than uniform isolation across all components.
2Reliability
If strict tenant isolation is implemented to ensure data security, then reliability is improved, but resource utilization efficiency deteriorates due to duplicate infrastructure requirements
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces dynamic deployment constraints that allow tenants to adjust their isolation requirements based on security needs and component sensitivity. The system dynamically determines valid deployment configurations that optimize resource sharing while meeting security requirements, rather than using static isolation rules.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent changes the parameter of tenant isolation from a binary state (isolated or shared) to a configurable spectrum of isolation levels. Tenants can specify deployment constraints that control the degree of sharing for different application components, allowing optimization of both security and resource utilization through parameter adjustment.
3Reliability
If tenants are allowed to exclude specific groups from sharing application components, then data security is improved, but device complexity increases due to constraint management overhead
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements self-service by allowing tenants to autonomously define their own deployment constraints and exclusion rules for different application components. Each tenant can independently configure which groups should be excluded from sharing specific components, without requiring manual system administrator intervention for constraint management.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent incorporates feedback mechanisms where the system automatically validates deployment constraints against security policies and resource availability. The constraint determination process provides feedback to tenants about valid configurations, helping them manage complex security requirements without overwhelming manual intervention.
Data Source
AI summary
A computer-implemented method for deploying an application on a computing resource includes: defining sets of groups of tenants for categorizing the plurality of tenants; assigning each tenant to at least one group of tenants; providing a deployment model for each combination of an application component of the plurality of application components and a tenant; determining constraint information for each combination of application component and tenant depending on the deployment model, wherein the deployment model is configured to enable each tenant to include and/or exclude entire groups of tenants from sharing one or more application components and/or infrastructure of the computing resource; determining a valid deployment configuration of the application depending on the constraint information associated with each application component; and deploying the application on the computing resource accordingly.