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Dynamics 365 Community / Forums / Small and medium business | Business Central, N... / Compatibility of Multi...
Small and medium business | Business Central, N...
Suggested Answer

Compatibility of Multi‑Tenancy with Business Central SaaS

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Posted on by VM-14050617-0 28

I would like to check the compatibility and support of the multi‑tenancy architecture in Business Central SaaS.

From my analysis, the traditional multi‑tenant model—where a single application database is shared across multiple tenant databases (each storing separate business data)—is only available in Business Central On‑Premises. This setup allows multiple isolated tenant databases to run on a shared application layer.

However, in Business Central Online, this model does not seem to apply because:

  • The underlying multi‑tenant architecture is fully managed by Microsoft.
  • Customers and partners cannot access databases at SQL level.
  • The SaaS platform instead provides isolated environments (Production/Sandbox) rather than customer‑managed tenants.

I am unable to find any official documentation which showcase how to use multi tenancy in Business Central On-Cloud.

Could the community please confirm whether multi‑tenancy is officially unsupported in BC SaaS, and if there are any alternative approaches or considerations for similar scenarios in the Business Central On-Cloud?

Thanks in advance!

Categories:
Dynamics 365 Business Central
I have the same question (0)
  • Suggested answer
    Dhiren Nagar Profile Picture
    Dhiren Nagar 2,849 Super User 2026 Season 1 on at
    Hi,
     
    In my experience I've seen Multi-tenant architecture only in case of On-Prem client and not for On-Cloud deployments.
     
     
    Other experts can comment on it, if any other workaround or solution for the same.
     
    However I've seen some partners have created their own solutions to maintain single portal/workspace to deploy similar solutions to multiple client's tenants. This is managed through Business Central Admin Center APIs.
     

    ✅ Tick the checkbox below to mark the answer as verified, if it helped resolve your question.

    Regards,
    Dhiren.
     
  • Suggested answer
    OussamaSabbouh Profile Picture
    OussamaSabbouh 11,106 Super User 2026 Season 1 on at
    Hello,
     
    You can’t directly “upgrade” an existing BC Docker container in place; the supported approach is to create a new container on the target version (e.g., BC27), restore/attach your existing BC26 database to it, and then run the technical database conversion plus data upgrade against that database, which is exactly how Microsoft’s major version upgrade process is designed (platform conversion + running upgrade codeunits/toolkit) ; so yes, you can absolutely reuse the existing database, but you do it by moving it to a new container, not by modifying the old one; best practice for dev sandboxes is to keep SQL persistent (external SQL instance or mounted volume), script container creation with BcContainerHelper, back up the database, spin up the new version container, restore the DB, run the upgrade, then publish/synchronize/upgrade your extensions, which avoids losing data while still following the proper upgrade flow instead of deleting everything and starting from scratch.
     
    Regards,
    Oussama Sabbouh

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