Cloud can be confusing sometimes. You finally understand the difference between on-premise and cloud, but then there are multiple cloud architectures?! You immediately ask yourself: Which one is better? As often in life, there is no universal answer. It depends. However, a multi-tenant cloud will almost always cost you less.
Single-Tenant
A single-tenant cloud only serves a single client. Is it also known as a private cloud. The infrastructure is provisioned for exclusive use by a single organisation. Usually this is operated by a third party and managed off-premises. Some refer to this as hosting, because on-premise servers and storage are outsourced to an external provider. Picture it as a mansion in a cloud.
Multi-Tenant
In a multi-tenant cloud multiple customers share infrastructure. Often people compare a multi-tenant cloud with an apartment building; many apartments mean multiple tenants. Tenants represent an organization’s data, which is isolated from others. Just like your neighbors cannot enter your apartment, because brick walls and doors separate you. What’s special about this house is that your apartment is constantly being refurbished, in a MT cloud you get the latest updates automatically. In the end, the building’s services and costs are shared by all tenants, which means that it is cost-efficient.