System and method for supporting multi-tenancy in an application server, cloud, or other environment

A method for supporting multi-tenancy in an application server, a cloud environment, or other environments, comprising:

• providing, at a computer, an application server or other environments executing thereon, and having a domain for execution of software applications, and one or more resources that are deployed to the domain for use by the software applications;
• defining, at the computer, one or more resource group templates, wherein each resource group template defines, at domain level, a collection of resources that are referenced from a resource group;
• defining, at the computer, one or more resource groups, wherein each resource group references a resource group template, and defines a fully-qualified collection of resources;
• and
• defining, at the computer, one or more partitions, wherein each partition provides a subdivision of the domain, and includes one or more resource groups, and references one or more resource group templates;
• wherein, for a particular partition, a resource group template is referenced by a resource group in that particular partition, to provide configuration data for use with the resource group template to which it refers, and to bind resources of the resource group template to partition-specific values, for use by the referencing resource group in that particular partition or a software application associated therewith;
• and
• wherein a tenant is associated with a partition for use by that tenant.

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

• providing an application server or other environments executing thereon, and having a domain for execution of software applications, and one or more resources that are deployed to the domain for use by the software applications;
• defining one or more resource group templates, wherein each resource group template defines, at domain level, a collection of resources that are referenced from a resource group;
• defining one or more resource groups, wherein each resource group references a resource group template, and defines a fully-qualified collection of resources;
• and
• defining one or more partitions, wherein each partition provides a subdivision of the domain, and includes one or more resource groups, and references one or more resource group templates;
• wherein, for a particular partition, a resource group template is referenced by a resource group in that particular partition, to provide configuration data for use with the resource group template to which it refers, and to bind resources of the resource group template to partition-specific values, for use by the referencing resource group in that particular partition or a software application associated therewith;
• and
• wherein a tenant is associated with a partition for use by that tenant.