Notes

The term "software multitenancy" refers to a software architecture in which a single instance of software runs on a server and serves multiple tenants. A tenant is a group of users who share a common access with specific privileges to the software instance. With a multitenant architecture, a software application is designed to provide every tenant a dedicated share of the instance - including its data, configuration, user management, tenant individual functionality and non-functional properties. Multitenancy contrasts with multi-instance architectures, where separate software instances operate on behalf of different tenants.

On-demand software provides the same or enhanced capabilities compared to on-premises software but the main benefit is that companies don't have to buy their own software. The customer pays a flat monthly fee to use the software and can decommission services anytime. On-demand software also eliminates the need for in-house server hardware and other operational expenses, as well as the staff required to manage the software. The on-demand software can be accessed anytime globally from the Internet in a standard Web browser on most end devices such as computers, tablets and smartphones. The vendor, in turn, is responsible for ensuring the software’s availability, back-end security and management and versioning control.