It’s time to talk about the types of things you should consider when diving into multi-tenant applications and things to be especially aware of if you attempt to make things faster by going multi-threaded at the same time. Join us as Allen continues is non-winning / non-losing streak, JZ is taken out by a storm, and Outlaw continues to ignore the notes for the intro to the show…
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- Single vs multi-tenanted applications and multi-threaded programming
- Be very careful about sharing state when doing anything in multi-threaded AND multi-tenanted applications
What are some important things to consider when writing multi-tenanted applications – per Claude
As mentioned in the episode, Claude’s answers seem to be very database heavy
- Data isolation: Ensure that each tenant’s data is securely separated and inaccessible to other tenants.
- Authentication and authorization: Implement robust systems to verify tenant identity and control access to resources.
- Scalability: Design the architecture to handle growth in both the number of tenants and data volume per tenant.
- Performance: Optimize database queries and resource allocation to maintain speed as tenant count increases.
- Customization: Allow for tenant-specific configurations and features without compromising the core codebase.
- Monitoring and logging: Implement comprehensive logging and monitoring to track usage, errors, and performance per tenant.
- Maintenance and updates: Design the system to allow for updates and maintenance with minimal disruption to tenants.
- Data backup and recovery: Implement tenant-specific backup and recovery processes.
- Compliance and data regulations: Ensure the system can meet various regulatory requirements that may differ by tenant.
- Tenant onboarding and offboarding: Create efficient processes for adding new tenants and removing old ones.
- Good feature flagging support?
- Tracing / OpenTelemetry
Can you elaborate on the data isolation?
Data isolation is crucial in multi-tenant systems to prevent unauthorized access and ensure data privacy. Here are some key strategies to ensure data isolation:
- Separate databases
- Use a separate database for each tenant
- Pros: Strong isolation, easier compliance
- Cons: Higher maintenance, potentially higher costs
- Shared database with separate schemas
- Each tenant gets their own schema within a shared database
- Pros: Good isolation, more cost-effective than separate databases
- Cons: Requires careful access control, potential for errors
- Shared schema with tenant ID
- Use a single schema but include a tenant ID column in each table
- Pros: Most cost-effective, easiest to maintain
- Cons: Highest risk of data leaks, requires vigilant query filtering
- Row-level security
- Implement database-level security policies to restrict access based on tenant ID
- Particularly useful with shared schema approach
- Encryption
- Encrypt sensitive data, potentially using tenant-specific keys
- Adds an extra layer of protection even if other measures fail
- Connection pooling
- Use separate connection pools for each tenant to prevent session mixups
- Query filtering
- Always include tenant ID in queries, preferably at the database level
- Use ORMs or query builders that automatically add tenant filters
- API and application-level checks
- Validate tenant ID in all API calls and application logic
- Implement middleware to enforce tenant-specific access
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