Hello,

I am debating on whether I should use one Db or many for a project I am assigned to. The application is store front application for a 7 online retailers, number of retailers will grow. Each should be able to manage their settings sparately.

Should I design a separate Db for each, which I suspect could be a maintainance nightmare, OR one DB with a Table for Account that holds the identity of each store front and link data accordingly.

From your expereinces I would like to hear feedback on pros and cons.

Thanks
Mike

If you will be hosting the data for all these retailers, then a single database will be more manageable for you. However, more care will need to be taken to ensure that they cannot accidentally see or update each others' data.

While the number of retailers is small, a database each would probably not be too difficult to manage, but for 50 or 100 it would be onerous.

One database, definitely.

Most db offerings have security that will allow you to limit the access based on your Account table. But actually that will probably not be relevant, as the joins (links) will do that anyway.

Cheers