While maintaining an LMS (Learning Management System), I discovered an interesting structure. Multiple schools and educational institutions were sharing the same frontend codebase on the same server. Each institution runs its own independent educational environment, but they’re actually using one shared system. This led me to learn about “multi-tenant architecture.”
What is Multi-Tenant Architecture?
Multi-tenant architecture is a structure where one software instance serves multiple customers (tenants) at the same time. University A, High School B, and Academy C each appear to have their own educational systems, but they actually share the same codebase and infrastructure.
Multi-Tenant Structure in Our LMS
Shared parts: Frontend code, server infrastructure, and database systems. Users from each institution use the same UI/UX and features, sharing server resources.
Separated parts: Each institution’s data, user accounts, and domains. Seoul University students can only see Seoul University’s courses and grades, and Yonsei University professors can only access Yonsei University’s student information.
Benefits of This Structure
High operational efficiency: One code deployment applies new features or bug fixes to all institutions. When we add a new quiz feature to the LMS, all universities and academies can use it immediately.
Cost savings: Instead of having separate servers and development teams for each institution, one system serves multiple customers, greatly reducing infrastructure and development costs.
Consistent user experience: All institutions use the same interface and features, so users can easily adapt when moving between different institutions.
Challenges from a Maintenance Perspective
Data isolation security is most important. When modifying code, we must avoid creating bugs that accidentally access other institutions’ data. We need to be careful not to miss tenant ID filtering in queries.
Performance monitoring is necessary. We need to monitor so that traffic spikes from one institution’s large exams or assignment submissions don’t affect other institutions.
Managing different institutional requirements is complex. When University A wants a credit system and Vocational School B wants a completion system, we need to think about how to handle these differences in one codebase. Personally, this is the most challenging part - it’s hard to judge whether features requested by specific institutions will be needed by others, and whether they’re worth implementing from cost and efficiency perspectives.
Real Operation Experience
During LMS maintenance, there’s complexity in considering all institutions’ requirements when developing new features. But once implemented well, all tenants benefit from the scalability.
I also learned that database schema changes or major updates affect all institutions, so more careful planning and testing are needed.
Conclusion
Multi-tenant architecture, which I naturally encountered through LMS maintenance, is a core pattern in modern SaaS. While it has complexity, it offers great advantages in cost efficiency and operational convenience. With growing interest in SaaS these days, I hope this article helps people understand SaaS and multi-tenant concepts. Managing and developing this structure more efficiently will be an important challenge going forward.