The Many Methods of Managing Customers and Multi-tenancy

Being an MSP Today Is Complicated

The service is expected to be delivered “as-a-Service”
Customers have many different risk profiles
It’s difficult to explain how commercials affect risk
It can feel like you’re custom-building solutions for every customer

This Blog Post Will Give You Tools to Help Your Customers Understand:

How risk, economics, and performance interact
Why Multi-tenancy might or might not be right
Where they can use Multi-tenancy internally to manage costs

We’ll explore common customer scenarios and the drivers that justify Multi-tenancy—framed in a way that helps your customers understand your value.

Future blog posts in this series will cover:
The economics of MSP services – deep dive into Multi-tenancy
When is single tenant right for my customer and business?
Navigating cloud: Office 365, Citrix Cloud, and others
Solution deep-dives by customer type

🏗️ Building a Multi-Tenant AD

When does it work? When is it still relevant?

Scenario 1 – The ISV-Focused App

The Situation

You offer a specific line-of-business app that many of your customers use. Common examples:

QuickBooks (older versions)
Healthcare apps for clinics or vets
Legal platforms
Country/region-specific ERPs

You’re not hosting full environments—just the app, often via Citrix XenApp or RDS.

Why Multi-Tenancy Works Here

The app is stable and unchanging
No cloud version available or not mature
Switching costs are high
No real alternative exists

This makes multi-tenant AD hosting ideal. It allows:

Easier security control
Fast onboarding via automation tools like Atria
Shared SQL, allowing investments in high availability
Cost-efficient scaling

Scenario 2 – The Small Customer

Most of your targets are <50 users, sometimes up to 500. These customers are:

Easier to win
Simpler to manage
Often want full-stack IT from one provider
Likely running legacy systems (even Windows XP 😬)
Want remote access (especially post-COVID)
Want to avoid CapEx and favor operational flexibility

Multi-tenancy helps:

Deliver modern, secure desktops at low cost
Support remote and hybrid work
Leverage cloud tools like Office 365, Azure, AWS
Provide a flexible path to full cloud adoption

Scenario 3 – The Conglomerate / Government

You’re supporting a government agency or business conglomerate with:

Multiple departments or companies
Each wanting some control but sharing broad IT goals
Separate infrastructures or Office 365 tenants
Security and compliance requirements

Why Multi-Tenancy Still Makes Sense

While it may seem counterintuitive, multi-tenancy works here because:

Security/commercial goals are shared
You’re building an isolated, shared environment
It becomes an economic discussion, not just a technical one

Benefits:

Shared infrastructure = lower cost
Central helpdesk
Single deployment = faster provisioning
Automation becomes scalable (via Atria or custom scripts)
Training, support, and ops standardization across departments

Dedicated apps, file servers, or SQL can still be isolated as needed
But AD remains unified for manageability and scale

🧠 Multi-Tenant Summary

Isolation

Mid-isolation (shared servers, AD group permissions)
High isolation (shared AD, dedicated everything else)
You control the economic-risk slider

Costs

Lowest cost per user
Scale infrastructure and management efficiently
Transparent cost models = informed customer choices

Security

Inherently higher risk
Mitigated by automation (e.g. Atria), strict permissions, segmentation
Must be a clear risk vs economics discussion with the customer

Customization

From branded wallpapers to dedicated app servers
Customers lose direct AD admin—use your helpdesk or Atria instead

🔑 In Bullet Points

One AD = less admin overhead
One server farm = lower onboarding time/cost
One consistent environment = easier helpdesk
Share SQL, AV, Load Balancers
Automate via scripts or Atria
Multi-tenancy works even for complex orgs (like Government)%

Multi-Tenant AD Levers

👉 Read more