System and method for tenant management in a cloud platform environment

A method of providing tenant management in a cloud computing environment, comprising:

• providing, at a computer including one or more processors, a cloud environment that supports provisioning of enterprise applications as services, for use by tenants of the cloud environment, including
• providing a plurality of service definition packages including, for each service type of a plurality of service types, a service definition package that contains information required for a particular service type to be offered by the cloud environment, and wherein the service definition package is installable to the cloud environment, to enable the cloud environment to provide the particular service type,
• providing a plurality of service management engines including, for each service type of the plurality of service types, a service management engine that is associated with the service type and enables provisioning and management of service instances of its associated service type, and
• instantiating one or more of the plurality of service types as one or more service instances, for use by one or more tenants of the cloud environment, wherein the one or more service instances use resources of the cloud environment;
• providing a tenant manager that enables configuration and management of tenant utilization of services and resources of the cloud environment, including
• accessing information in a tenant store repository describing a plurality of tenants,
• receiving one or more administrative commands to manage particular ones of the plurality of tenants, or subtenants thereof, and their usage of the service instances, wherein each administrative command is selectively associated with a particular tenant or subtenant, and
• applying a received administrative command to the particular tenant or subtenant associated with the received administrative command, to manage use, by the particular tenant or subtenant, of the services and resources of the cloud environment.

A non-transitory computer readable storage medium, including instructions stored thereon which when read and executed by one or more computers cause the one or more computers to perform the steps comprising:

• providing, at a computer including one or more processors, a cloud environment that supports provisioning of enterprise applications as services, for use by tenants of the cloud environment, including
• providing a plurality of service definition packages including, for each service type of a plurality of service types, a service definition package that contains information required for a particular service type to be offered by the cloud environment, and wherein the service definition package is installable to the cloud environment, to enable the cloud environment to provide the particular service type,
• providing a plurality of service management engines including, for each service type of the plurality of service types, a service management engine that is associated with the service type and enables provisioning and management of service instances of its associated service type, and
• instantiating one or more of the plurality of service types as one or more service instances, for use by one or more tenants of the cloud environment, wherein the one or more service instances use resources of the cloud environment;
• providing a tenant manager that enables configuration and management of tenant utilization of services and resources of the cloud environment, including
• accessing information in a tenant store repository describing a plurality of tenants,
• receiving one or more administrative commands to manage particular ones of the plurality of tenants, or subtenants thereof, and their usage of the service instances, wherein each administrative command is selectively associated with a particular tenant or subtenant, and
• applying a received administrative command to the particular tenant or subtenant associated with the received administrative command, to manage use, by the particular tenant or subtenant, of the services and resources of the cloud environment.