Configuring Multi-Tenancy in SharePoint 2010

In this article we will be seeing how to configure multi tenancy in SharePoint 2010.

In this article:

Create Subscription settings Service Application and Proxy

Subscription settings service application is used to keep track of Multi - Tenant services and subscription ID's.
Go to Central Administration => Application Management => Manage services on server.
Start the service "Microsoft SharePoint Foundation Subscription Settings Service".
Create a new subscription settings service application using the following powershell command.

$applicationPool = New-SPServiceApplicationPool -Name "Subscription Settings Service Pool" -Account domain\username
$serviceApplication = New-SPSubscriptionSettingsServiceApplication –Name "Subscription Settings Service Test" –Databasename "SubscriptionSettingsServiceTestDB" –applicationpool $applicationPool
$serviceApplicationProxy = new-SPSubscriptionSettingsServiceApplicationProxy –ServiceApplication $serviceApplication
Go to Central Administration => Application Management =>Manage service applications.
You could see a new Subscription settings service application is created successfully.

Create new site subscription:

SharePoint 2010 introduces a new concept called Site Subscriptions.
Site Subscriptions are also known as Tenants.
It is used to represent a collection of all SPSite objects that currently subscribe to service partitions, settings, and features.
Site collections for each tenant are grouped together with a Subscription ID.
Subscription ID is used to map features, services, and sites to tenants.
Create a new site subscription using the following powershell command.

$subscription = New-SPSiteSubscription

Create Tenant Administration site:

Tenant Administration Site is a new site type that is used for managing all the features and sites assigned to the site subscription.
From tenant administration new site collections can be created, but it requires that Self Service Site creation is enabled for the web application.
Self Service Site creation is web application scoped.
Create a tenant administration site using the following powershell command.

New-SPSite –url "http://serverName:2/sites/Tenant Administration" –Template "tenantadmin#0" –OwnerAlias domain\userName –SiteSubscription $subscription -AdministrationSiteType TenantAdministration
Template "tenantadmin#0": A new site template in SharePoint 2010 which is used to manage tenant site collections.
SiteSubscription: This is used to associate the tenant administration site with the Site Subscription. A site collection can be associated with only one tenant administration site whereas a tenant administration site can be associated with many site collections.
AdministrationSiteType: It sets a flag at site collection creation time that is used to manage tenant site collections.

Create Member site:

Go to Tenant Administration => Manage Site Collections => Click on "New" to create a new site collection (Enable Self Service Site Creation- refer Enable Self Service Site creation in SharePoint 2010 ).
Using powershell how to set the site collection to the subscription.

$site = Get-SPSite | where {$_.url -eq "http://serverName:2/sites/Test"}
Set-SPSite -Identity $site -SiteSubscription $subscription