Multi-tenant - Database/Schema

[palashg]

Hi,

In Alfresco muli-tenant environment, content gets stored in its respective tenant specific file store. "But the meta-data is logically partitioned within the DB schema". Any multi-tenant cloud implementation generally follows one of the following data architecture :

1) Separate database(s) - each tenant will get its own database along with schema
2) Shared database, separate schema - all tenant(s) will share one database, but will get separate schema for each tenant
3) Shared database, shared schema - All tenant(s) need to share same database and same schema. It means each record in shared schema/database has to be identified with tenant specific identifier

Looks like Alfresco follows third approach. Is that true? Now if this is true, how can we take the backup for tenant specific data from DB? All customers' data is really sitting in a same place (same schema) and loosing multi-tenant flavor. Is not true? Can anybody pl get back with response ?

Can we run a multi-tenant Alfresco instance having tenant specific schema? If yes, how?

With regards,
Palash

[palashg]

Can anybody pl respond to this from Alfresco developer community?

[mrogers]

No.    There's ony one shema for multi-tennant.

[palashg]

Thanks for confirming this. But I see this might be challange for some customers who are very sensitive about their data and backup/restore process. If this is the case, we loose the flexibility of taking backup/doing restore specific to tenant. Some customers may not like this. Please let me know if I am wrong.

[mrogers]

In that case run multiple instances of Alfresco.

[fcajve]

hi,
is this limitation obsolete in alfresco 4 : is it now possible to run one instance of alfresco with multiple separate databases ?
regards,

[mrogers]

No its not obsolete.

[lista]

I don't have any experience hands on, so I'm just researching a bit, and found this piece of information on forum. I'm wondering if there's any truth to it, or am I misunderstanding something?

"Alfresco: How to point Alfresco to new database and different binaries path? Simple, you must change the /conf/Catalina/tenant1.mycompany.com/alfresco.xml file created after the first deploy of your new server. This file accepts properties like "datase.url", "root.dir", "email.server", etc."

[jpfi]

Hi,
if you use multi tenancy:
X Tenants = 1 Alfresco repository = 1 DB scheme = 1 to X ContentStores

If you need to ensure that data of different tenants is stored in different DB schemes, then you'll need to use different Alfresco Repositories.
Cheers, Jan