Multi-Tenancy with value for the client

What does Multi Tenancy mean to the client??

Not much if you are working with a SAAS provider. Some SAAS providers like SalesForce.com tout Multi Tenancy as a valuable feature to a client. The only real value is to the provider or to Salesforce. That is if you are working with a SAAS solution. Multi Tenancy to salesforce type companies means they can cram more clients on one server and greatly reduce their costs. There is no value to the client or users in this model.

I find it funny that they used to tout Multi Tenancy in their marketing materials. They made it sound like it was a benefit to the Client. The only benefit might be in a lowered user cost to the client but that does not seem to be happening as Salesforce.com prising is double to triple MS CRM hosting costs and the projected CRM LIVE costs.

MS CRM v4.0 will offer multi tenancy to clients that will actually translate into value for the client and the end users. Larger mid market companies and enterprises will be able to have one server to deliver separate CRM instances to multiple departments, divisions, or groups/teams. That is valuable to them. No multiple CRM front end servers to manage and patch and backup etc.

We have multiple clients that are very excited about this architecture model. Some have 5-10 different CRM Front end servers with one back end SQL server. They will be able to upgrade and then move all the CRM instances to one box! This will have to be a beefy box but it will GREATLY Reduce their costs and management tasks. That is valuable to the IT group.

I was in Redmond at the end of September 2007 for 5 days on the new version and I experimented quite a bit with the creation of new instances. It is pretty AWESOME! I could not believe how easy it is to build out a new, entirely separate instance of CRM.

They have moved around the DB architecture to facilitate this and other features. Now there are basically 2 DBs. The CRM DB and the Config DB.

In the CRM DB you now have all the records and customizations for an instance.
In the Config DB you now have all the System and User Settings.

When you create a new instance of CRM it just adds a new named CRM DB instance.

So the Config DB Services all the CRM DB Instances in SQL. This makes moving around as an Admin very easy!

The one thing that I did not like is that you cannot easily move data and utilize it between instances. There will have to be backend synch or integration to facilitate that sharing and unification of the data. That is ok. It would have been cool if you could have mapped from one DB Instance to another to share fields and all the data stayed synched. Maybe in the next version.

Regards,

Jon Petrucelli - http://www.productivegap.com/