Re: Help with hosting multiple versions of the same schema (1 per client)

Howard,

Thank you for you feedback and that link. It was a good read and definately makes sense.

As a technical solution I would agree that FGAC seems the ideal solution, hence it was on my list. Unfortuanetly , especially as a small business, dropping $48k+ CDN on Oracle enterprise will severly crimp the bottom line and frankly in our current state is not in the budget. That being said, FGAC does seem like an implementation I could implement under the covers after the fact. No one would be the wiser that I had added the additional 'company' columns to each table. In fact I might just do that in advance.

As for the 'hate-each-other-to-death customers' its less an issue of technical reasoning as it is dealing with non-IT people. It is much easier to visualize a separate schema than a secure 'view' of a shared data table. Anyhow I appreciate both yours and Joel's opinion and I agree that offering a secure box for a fee is also a very good option. I will also be calling Oracle Sales to see what they suggest or can justify.

Given then that Enterprise maybe out of the question, at least in the short-term, what would you suggest? I am starting to lean towards logging in as a single user with private synonyms and controlling more the of the security through user lookup tables

thank you very much for your time.

jack

"Howard J. Rogers" <hjr_at_dizwell.com> wrote in message news:41c761eb$0$1121$afc38c87_at_news.optusnet.com.au...
> Joel Garry wrote:
>>>... and I realise that your point (3) is a bit of a show-stopper,
>>>but... point (4) must, surely, be a complete red herring since
>>>your original question asked how to 'create a schema' for each
>>>client who comes online. In other words, even if you did it in
>>>exactly the way you asked about, your hate-each-other-to-death
>>>customers are going to be sharing the database... so it seems to
>>>me, they'd better get used to the idea!
>>
>>
>> I doubt that is a red herring, and he did ask for a solution that
>> covers a range of possible configurations. It is not a red herring
>> because it is not purely a technical question, it is a marketing
>> question that must be dealt with when providing services to
>> competitors, especially with all the media coverage given to "hackers."
>
> Red Herring: n. Something that draws attention away from the central
> issue.
>
> If it had been a technical question, there would have been a technical
> answer (and I would have called it right or wrong). Precisely because it
> is a question of nuance, presentation, appearances and marketing is the
> reason I called it a red herring.
>
> The central issue here is that ALL proposed solutions (that I've read in
> this thread, anyway -I may have missed a few) involve customers' data
> co-residing in the one database. Eschewing FGAC partly because it raises a
> presentational issue of customers's data co-residing in the one *table* is
> to miss that central, shared database, issue. In other words, is it
> "better", from the marketing perspective, to say "You are sharing the
> database with competitor X" or "You are sharing the table with competitor
> X"? Strikes me that in both cases, you will either be able to reassure the
> customers, or not.
>
> But to imagine that there are no presentational/marketing issues when
> separate schemas are involved (and hence that FGAC is uniquely difficult
> to market) is weak, I think.
>
>> I'm sure Oracle and Sun must deal with this issue with their hosted
>> solutions, perhaps the OP should ask their salespeople as if he were
>> going to buy.
>
> That is a very good suggestion.
>
>> I'd say, turn the lemon into lemonade by quoting a range of prices
>> based on how paranoid the customers are. If they want one instance per
>> schema, fine! Sell more boxes. Of course, I'm no marketing guru.
>
> That is equally a good suggestion, and is the only one I've read that
> *truly* resolves the 'sharing the database' issue. IE, don't!
>
> Regards
> HJR
Received on Mon Dec 20 2004 - 18:25:43 CST