Redefining Multi-Tenancy in the Hybrid Cloud Era

Redefining Multi-Tenancy in the Hybrid Cloud Era

In 2014, an increasing number of CIOs and IT vendors recognized that "the future is the hybrid cloud era". Hybrid cloud deployments, which combine the advantages of public and private clouds, bring flexibility, pay‑as‑you‑go pricing, resource sharing, security guarantees, better control, and optimized time allocation. They also allow enterprises to keep critical workloads on internal infrastructure while moving non‑critical workloads to inexpensive public clouds.

Today, the hybrid cloud ecosystem for enterprises can be summarized into three parts: the private cloud in the user’s own data center, public cloud services provided by vendors such as Microsoft, and third‑party cloud platforms offered by carriers. Microsoft’s vision for the Cloud OS operating system is user‑centric, aiming to achieve seamless compatibility among these three cloud platforms and to enable enterprises to switch freely among them.

Cloud OS

In the emerging hybrid cloud era, how should we reinterpret the meaning and management requirements behind multi‑tenancy? Fundamentally, multi‑tenancy is a core principle of cloud computing and a key common attribute of both public and private clouds. A tenant can be any application—whether an internal private‑cloud app or an external public‑cloud app—that requires its own secure, isolated virtual computing environment, encompassing everything from storage to the user interface. All interactive applications (or tenants) inherently possess a multi‑user nature.

In practice, regardless of whether an IT department plans to implement public, private, or hybrid cloud, it is crucial to understand the subtle differences of shared multi‑tenant architectures. For public cloud deployments, IT managers need to know the extent to which vendors support multi‑tenant architectures. For private cloud implementations, managers must design the multi‑tenant architecture themselves. When combining public and private clouds, a flexible, stable, and comprehensive tenant management, billing, and operation system becomes essential.

Creating a Multi‑Tenant Cloud for Optimal Cloud Management

For example, an enterprise user considering cloud applications typically looks for more flexible use of cloud technology without vendor lock‑in. They may want to create their own multi‑tenant cloud so that employees from various business units can use it as conveniently as Windows Azure, and also have accounting functions to evaluate daily resource consumption of each business unit, thereby forming an automated operation environment that makes better use of existing hardware assets.

Another example concerns carriers or third‑party service providers, who focus on how to attract more enterprise users, build self‑service multi‑tenant management portals, bill according to usage, encourage greater consumption of cloud resources, and differentiate their services from public‑cloud offerings.

Windows Azure Pack stands out because it enables enterprises and service providers to use their own data centers to deliver self‑service infrastructure and platform services with an experience consistent with Microsoft’s public cloud. Windows Azure Pack is primarily positioned for private and hybrid clouds, offering a management self‑service portal.

Windows Azure Pack Management Architecture

Specifically, built on the familiar Windows Server and System Center, Windows Azure Pack provides a seamless cloud (underlying solutions can be Hyper‑V, VMware, etc.), a multi‑tenant operation platform (offering reporting, statistics, and other automation features), and a corporate showcase platform.

Microsoft does not force users to choose a single option; users can extend the solution according to their environment, such as integrating Windows Azure Pack with KVM or OpenStack and adding OpenStack resources through secondary development.

Moreover, Windows Azure Pack allows service providers to launch new products quickly in the market without additional fees. Compared with the Windows Azure Service Bus released two years earlier, Windows Server 2012 R2 now offers Service Bus 1.1 for Windows Server, with substantial investment from Microsoft to deliver a self‑service tenant experience consistent with the existing Windows Azure experience.

Providing a Consistent Windows Azure Self‑Service Management Experience

The management portal in Windows Azure Pack enables users to control how IT services are offered to tenants, while also providing tenants with a rich self‑service experience for configuring and managing resources.

Creating Tenant Accounts as Administrator

To achieve this management capability, Windows Azure Pack provides the following portals:

• Tenant portal – This portal offers a user experience consistent with the Windows Azure Developer portal, providing tenants with self‑service configuration and management functions. It employs multi‑factor authentication technologies, including Active Directory Federation Services.

• Administrator portal – This portal allows administrators to configure and manage servers and cloud resources for tenant use.

Interaction and Relationship between Service Administrator and Tenants

Windows Azure Pack also provides high‑density web application hosting. Its website service simplifies the deployment and management of multi‑tenant, high‑density web hosting services. The Web App Gallery enables tenants to use mainstream web applications and supports SQL Server and MySQL databases. The website service supports many application frameworks, including ASP.NET, Classic ASP, PHP, and Node.js with comprehensive integration of GitHub, BitBucket, DropBox, and Team Foundation Server for source code control.