Patent ID: 8782748

Claim:
A method comprising: using a grid network architecture that includes a plurality of serving computers including using a grid manager to maintain global mappings associated with tenants and a plurality of directory service instances, wherein the grid manager operates in part to monitor a deployment status of the plurality of directory service instances and make one or more new directory service instances available to the tenants when called, wherein the grid manager provides global mapping information for synchronizing directory service instance updates; using the plurality of directory service instances in part to define access privileges for groups of customers requesting services of the serving computers, each directory service instance being independent of other directory service instances and including one or more organizational units, wherein each organizational unit is associated with a distinct customer and includes authorized users and one or more authorized foreign principle objects (FPOs); populating each organizational unit with customer data used to control access to services of the serving computers; and storing the directory service instances in computer readable storage.