What is multi-tenancy?

What does multi-tenancy mean, and why is the PBM Campaign Platform deliberately single-tenant?

The term is used in two senses. First, for software as a service in which many companies use the same installation and are separated only by permissions and identifiers in the database (multi-tenant). Second, particularly in Germany, for the ability to manage several units within one customer – such as subsidiaries, branches or dealers.

The shared installation is efficient, but it comes at a price: a flaw in the separation could make one company’s data visible to another, and the hosting location and security level are the same for everyone. For banks, insurers and statutory health insurers, this is often an obstacle in data protection and outsourcing reviews.

The PBM Campaign Platform is therefore deliberately single-tenant: each customer receives its own, fully isolated installation. It maps the second meaning – head office, branches, dealers – within this installation as Brands & locations: each brand has its own corporate identity, the head office locks legally important fields, and the brand boundary is a hard visibility boundary. This lets the head office stay in control without data being shared with other companies.