Why does my workspace need to use a system-wide unique name?

When naming a new customer workspace, you may have got an error message saying: “The workspace name is already in use”. But why is that? In this article, we will explain why we have chosen this architecture for MyEmsisoft.

Potential confusion

An obvious reason for having a unique naming requirement is to avoid confusing your workspace with another one. However, at first glance that is only relevant when both same-name workspaces are used within the same user or Emsisoft Partner scope.

MyEmsisoft is designed as a multi-tenant system, which means users can be members of multiple workspaces. It is impossible to know which workspaces someone may want to join in the future.

As an Emsisoft Partner, you may have customers that want to bring their workspace over from different accounts.

Account security

An even more relevant reason to always use unique workspace names is account security. Imagine receiving an email invitation to join a duplicate, non-authorized workspace which uses the same name as yours – but it is not your own. Just like a phishing attack, you would not be able to determine if the invitation is for the correct workspace or not.

If you are an Emsisoft Partner, you certainly don’t want threat actors coming after your clients by setting up a duplicate workspace and inviting them in. Worst case scenario, someone could trick people into (re-)deploying endpoint protection and then use the management console to get access to information that they are not supposed to see.