OFBiz for multiple entirely unrelated companies

[Torsten Schlabach-2]

Hi all!

We are in the process of setting up OFBiz and we're currently
investigating the possibility of becoming a hosting provider for OZBiz.

So we would want to rent out OFBiz to a number of customers who are
entirely unrelated to each other.

My question therefore is:

- Should we have a completely separate database for each customer
- or would it be possible to define silos or some kind of virtual
chinese walls withtin in the same database for different, unrelated
customers.

Please note that I am not looking at different legal entities which
belong to the same group of companies and do business with each other,
but in theory or customers could be competitors to each other. We would
therefore need to be 100% sure that customer A will never ever see any
data from customer B.

Is OFBiz designed in a way to support this or would separate databases
the clean and or recommended way of doing this?

Regards,
Torsten

[Brett]

Torsten,

I think most ofbiz users would recommend using separate databases.
This keeps everything a lot easier to manage and is less risky.

There are also some users that use Xen to install virtual manchines on
the same hardware.  This allows you to run multiple instances and
versions of ofbiz on the same machine.


Brett

On 11/12/06, Torsten Schlabach <[hidden email]> wrote:

> Hi all!
>
> We are in the process of setting up OFBiz and we're currently
> investigating the possibility of becoming a hosting provider for OZBiz.
>
> So we would want to rent out OFBiz to a number of customers who are
> entirely unrelated to each other.
>
> My question therefore is:
>
> - Should we have a completely separate database for each customer
> - or would it be possible to define silos or some kind of virtual
> chinese walls withtin in the same database for different, unrelated
> customers.
>
> Please note that I am not looking at different legal entities which
> belong to the same group of companies and do business with each other,
> but in theory or customers could be competitors to each other. We would
> therefore need to be 100% sure that customer A will never ever see any
> data from customer B.
>
> Is OFBiz designed in a way to support this or would separate databases
> the clean and or recommended way of doing this?
>
> Regards,
> Torsten
>
>

[Sebastian Schirmer]

Hi Torsten,

I think the best way is to separate ofbiz instances with different
databases. You can use the apache mod_jk with mutliple ajp workers on
different ports to separate the ofbiz instances. We have a production
environment running two instances of the same host.

best regards Sebastian


--On Sonntag, 12. November 2006 19:05 +0100 Torsten Schlabach
<[hidden email]> wrote:

> Hi all!
>
> We are in the process of setting up OFBiz and we're currently
> investigating the possibility of becoming a hosting provider for OZBiz.
>
> So we would want to rent out OFBiz to a number of customers who are
> entirely unrelated to each other.
>
> My question therefore is:
>
> - Should we have a completely separate database for each customer
> - or would it be possible to define silos or some kind of virtual
> chinese walls withtin in the same database for different, unrelated
> customers.
>
> Please note that I am not looking at different legal entities which
> belong to the same group of companies and do business with each other,
> but in theory or customers could be competitors to each other. We would
> therefore need to be 100% sure that customer A will never ever see any
> data from customer B.
>
> Is OFBiz designed in a way to support this or would separate databases
> the clean and or recommended way of doing this?
>
> Regards,
> Torsten
>

[Si Chen-2]

I agree.  Separate instances with separate databases is the best way,  
technically and from a business perspective.

On Nov 14, 2006, at 2:23 PM, Sebastian Schirmer wrote:

> Hi Torsten,
>
> I think the best way is to separate ofbiz instances with different  
> databases. You can use the apache mod_jk with mutliple ajp workers  
> on different ports to separate the ofbiz instances. We have a  
> production environment running two instances of the same host.
>
> best regards Sebastian
>
>
> --On Sonntag, 12. November 2006 19:05 +0100 Torsten Schlabach  
> <[hidden email]> wrote:
>
>> Hi all!
>>
>> We are in the process of setting up OFBiz and we're currently
>> investigating the possibility of becoming a hosting provider for  
>> OZBiz.
>>
>> So we would want to rent out OFBiz to a number of customers who are
>> entirely unrelated to each other.
>>
>> My question therefore is:
>>
>> - Should we have a completely separate database for each customer
>> - or would it be possible to define silos or some kind of virtual
>> chinese walls withtin in the same database for different, unrelated
>> customers.
>>
>> Please note that I am not looking at different legal entities which
>> belong to the same group of companies and do business with each  
>> other,
>> but in theory or customers could be competitors to each other. We  
>> would
>> therefore need to be 100% sure that customer A will never ever see  
>> any
>> data from customer B.
>>
>> Is OFBiz designed in a way to support this or would separate  
>> databases
>> the clean and or recommended way of doing this?
>>
>> Regards,
>> Torsten
>>

Best Regards,

Si
[hidden email]

[Daniel Kunkel]

Hi

Has anyone given serious consideration to creating a virtual database
redirector, so:

domain1.com uses database1
domain2.com uses database2
etc.

At the beginning of the request, the correct database connection is
selected, and everything that uses that connection will automatically be
connected to the correct database.

A technique like this is especially useful in that it would only
requires one instance of the OFBiz code, making hosting multiple OFBiz
business more feasible, and keeps each database separate so it would be
easy to move customers from server to server as necessary.

The challenge I see is that this will involve moving company
configuration information and e-mail templates from various system files
to somewhere else, or into the database.

Daniel


On Tue, 2006-11-14 at 16:19 -0800, Si Chen wrote:

> I agree.  Separate instances with separate databases is the best way,  
> technically and from a business perspective.
>
> On Nov 14, 2006, at 2:23 PM, Sebastian Schirmer wrote:
>
> > Hi Torsten,
> >
> > I think the best way is to separate ofbiz instances with different  
> > databases. You can use the apache mod_jk with mutliple ajp workers  
> > on different ports to separate the ofbiz instances. We have a  
> > production environment running two instances of the same host.
> >
> > best regards Sebastian
> >
> >
> > --On Sonntag, 12. November 2006 19:05 +0100 Torsten Schlabach  
> > <[hidden email]> wrote:
> >
> >> Hi all!
> >>
> >> We are in the process of setting up OFBiz and we're currently
> >> investigating the possibility of becoming a hosting provider for  
> >> OZBiz.
> >>
> >> So we would want to rent out OFBiz to a number of customers who are
> >> entirely unrelated to each other.
> >>
> >> My question therefore is:
> >>
> >> - Should we have a completely separate database for each customer
> >> - or would it be possible to define silos or some kind of virtual
> >> chinese walls withtin in the same database for different, unrelated
> >> customers.
> >>
> >> Please note that I am not looking at different legal entities which
> >> belong to the same group of companies and do business with each  
> >> other,
> >> but in theory or customers could be competitors to each other. We  
> >> would
> >> therefore need to be 100% sure that customer A will never ever see  
> >> any
> >> data from customer B.
> >>
> >> Is OFBiz designed in a way to support this or would separate  
> >> databases
> >> the clean and or recommended way of doing this?
> >>
> >> Regards,
> >> Torsten
> >>
>
> Best Regards,
>
> Si
> [hidden email]
>
>
>

--
Daniel

*-.,,.-*"*-.,,.-*"*-.,,.-*"*-.,,.-*"*-.,,.-*"*-.,,.-*"*-.,,.-*"*-
Have a GREAT Day!

Daniel Kunkel           [hidden email]
BioWaves, LLC           http://www.BioWaves.com
14150 NE 20th St. Suite F1
Bellevue, WA 98007
800-734-3588    425-895-0050
http://www.Apartment-Pets.com  http://www.Illusion-Optical.com
http://www.Card-Offer.com      http://www.RackWine.com
http://www.JokesBlonde.com     http://www.Brain-Fun.com 
*-.,,.-*"*-.,,.-*"*-.,,.-*"*-.,,.-*"*-.,,.-*"*-.,,.-*"*-.,,.-*"*-

[Torsten Schlabach-2]

Daniel,

your suggestion does make sense; that's for sure. I got the impression
that this hasn't been a topic yet as OFBiz has obviously not yet been
discovered by hosting providers. (Well, it has! We're one and we're
looking at it.)

I have no clue yet about the architecture of OFBiz, so I just cannot
comment on a technical implementation of proper virtual hosting, but IMO
it would make sense to plan for different approaches, as they will be
needed depending on the situation.

a) Name based virtual hosting, as you described:

 > domain1.com uses database1
 > domain2.com uses database2
 > etc.

b) Just put a drop-down with availabe databases onto the login screen.
This would for example make it quite easy for any internal setup within
a company to have a QA and a production database without the need to
create two different domains for that.

c) (Might be a problem): Have a user login and determine from the user's
profile to what organisation (=database) she or he belongs and then
maybe display a list of databases available.

The problem with c) is that I understand users are in the database, so
this is kind of a chicken and egg problem. One solution might be to make
users use email style usernames, such as username@domain where domain
determines the database to connect to.

 > The challenge I see is that this will involve moving company
 > configuration information and e-mail templates from various system
 > files to somewhere else, or into the database.

Where does this stuff live today? IMO it should be in a "save place"
anyway, i.e. under a separate tree in the filesystem to make sure you
can upgrade the OFBiz code without loosing your customizations.

Maybe someone who knows the code better than me could come up with a
place to start and look for a hook to make any of this happen. Would be
a nice exercise in getting aquainted with OFBiz internals.

I am not sure if this discussion belongs to the dev list, though?

Regards,
Torsten


Daniel Kunkel schrieb:

> Hi
>
> Has anyone given serious consideration to creating a virtual database
> redirector, so:
>
> domain1.com uses database1
> domain2.com uses database2
> etc.
>
> At the beginning of the request, the correct database connection is
> selected, and everything that uses that connection will automatically be
> connected to the correct database.
>
> A technique like this is especially useful in that it would only
> requires one instance of the OFBiz code, making hosting multiple OFBiz
> business more feasible, and keeps each database separate so it would be
> easy to move customers from server to server as necessary.
>
> The challenge I see is that this will involve moving company
> configuration information and e-mail templates from various system files
> to somewhere else, or into the database.
>
> Daniel
>
>
> On Tue, 2006-11-14 at 16:19 -0800, Si Chen wrote:
>
>>I agree.  Separate instances with separate databases is the best way,  
>>technically and from a business perspective.
>>
>>On Nov 14, 2006, at 2:23 PM, Sebastian Schirmer wrote:
>>
>>
>>>Hi Torsten,
>>>
>>>I think the best way is to separate ofbiz instances with different  
>>>databases. You can use the apache mod_jk with mutliple ajp workers  
>>>on different ports to separate the ofbiz instances. We have a  
>>>production environment running two instances of the same host.
>>>
>>>best regards Sebastian
>>>
>>>
>>>--On Sonntag, 12. November 2006 19:05 +0100 Torsten Schlabach  
>>><[hidden email]> wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>>Hi all!
>>>>
>>>>We are in the process of setting up OFBiz and we're currently
>>>>investigating the possibility of becoming a hosting provider for  
>>>>OZBiz.
>>>>
>>>>So we would want to rent out OFBiz to a number of customers who are
>>>>entirely unrelated to each other.
>>>>
>>>>My question therefore is:
>>>>
>>>>- Should we have a completely separate database for each customer
>>>>- or would it be possible to define silos or some kind of virtual
>>>>chinese walls withtin in the same database for different, unrelated
>>>>customers.
>>>>
>>>>Please note that I am not looking at different legal entities which
>>>>belong to the same group of companies and do business with each  
>>>>other,
>>>>but in theory or customers could be competitors to each other. We  
>>>>would
>>>>therefore need to be 100% sure that customer A will never ever see  
>>>>any
>>>>data from customer B.
>>>>
>>>>Is OFBiz designed in a way to support this or would separate  
>>>>databases
>>>>the clean and or recommended way of doing this?
>>>>
>>>>Regards,
>>>>Torsten
>>>>
>>
>>Best Regards,
>>
>>Si
>>[hidden email]
>>
>>
>>

[David E Jones-2]

On Nov 15, 2006, at 2:01 PM, Torsten Schlabach wrote:

> your suggestion does make sense; that's for sure. I got the  
> impression that this hasn't been a topic yet as OFBiz has obviously  
> not yet been discovered by hosting providers. (Well, it has! We're  
> one and we're looking at it.)

That's not exactly true, though it may seem that way because we don't  
support the variety of shared deployment that you have in mind.

Actually, in the last five years this has probably been discussed  
about 2000 times. Okay, that might be a small exaggeration, but  
realistically the number is probably about 40-50 and you'll find all  
sorts of interesting insights by searching the current mailing lists  
at the ASF, and even more on the old mailing list archives at  
mail.ofbiz.org.

-David

[Torsten Schlabach-2]

David,

sorry if you're annoyed, but I haven't found anything about this subject
in the archives.

Maybe I did not use the correct search terms. If you look at this thread
here, three other people have given the same answer, which I read as:
There's no real feature for that, you'll have to create separate
installations.

Did I misread anything? Any pointer would be very beneficial. If there
are good ways of doing this and nobody knows about it, it's a pitty,
isn't it?

Regards,
Torsten

David E Jones schrieb:

>
> On Nov 15, 2006, at 2:01 PM, Torsten Schlabach wrote:
>
>> your suggestion does make sense; that's for sure. I got the  
>> impression that this hasn't been a topic yet as OFBiz has obviously  
>> not yet been discovered by hosting providers. (Well, it has! We're  
>> one and we're looking at it.)
>
>
> That's not exactly true, though it may seem that way because we don't  
> support the variety of shared deployment that you have in mind.
>
> Actually, in the last five years this has probably been discussed  about
> 2000 times. Okay, that might be a small exaggeration, but  realistically
> the number is probably about 40-50 and you'll find all  sorts of
> interesting insights by searching the current mailing lists  at the ASF,
> and even more on the old mailing list archives at  mail.ofbiz.org.
>
> -David

[David E Jones-2]

On Nov 15, 2006, at 2:33 PM, Torsten Schlabach wrote:

> sorry if you're annoyed, but I haven't found anything about this  
> subject in the archives.
>
> Maybe I did not use the correct search terms. If you look at this  
> thread here, three other people have given the same answer, which I  
> read as: There's no real feature for that, you'll have to create  
> separate installations.

Not annoyed, just trying to point you to a long history of discussion  
on this topic (partially so I don't have to write about it again....).

Did you search the old messages on the lists.ofbiz.org server (sorry,  
I sent the wrong address in the last message, it is lists.ofbiz.org  
and not mail.ofbiz.org)?

> Did I misread anything? Any pointer would be very beneficial. If  
> there are good ways of doing this and nobody knows about it, it's a  
> pitty, isn't it?

In general, and this is probably most of what you'll find in the  
archives, OFBiz is very big and complex and how it works out of the  
box is not good for a bunch of small companies to be playing with.  
The demand right now, and historically, has been from companies that  
want customization and control over their data and their operations.  
Running a bunch of instances on the same app server and in the same  
set of database tables causes lots of problems and has very little up  
side or benefit in these circumstances.

There are lots of people who run multiple customer facing sites in a  
single OFBiz instance, all of which share data and are owned/run by  
the same company.

If you want to build something like NetSuite or SalesForce.com based  
on OFBiz, then you've got a lot of work to do outside of the  
deployment arrangements as they are very different from OFBiz and to  
a large extent serve a different audience. That sort of thing is  
certainly possible as an addition to OFBiz, but to date OFBiz itself  
has had no aspirations in that direction.

-David

> Regards,
> Torsten
>
> David E Jones schrieb:
>> On Nov 15, 2006, at 2:01 PM, Torsten Schlabach wrote:
>>> your suggestion does make sense; that's for sure. I got the  
>>> impression that this hasn't been a topic yet as OFBiz has  
>>> obviously  not yet been discovered by hosting providers. (Well,  
>>> it has! We're  one and we're looking at it.)
>> That's not exactly true, though it may seem that way because we  
>> don't  support the variety of shared deployment that you have in  
>> mind.
>> Actually, in the last five years this has probably been discussed  
>> about 2000 times. Okay, that might be a small exaggeration, but  
>> realistically the number is probably about 40-50 and you'll find  
>> all  sorts of interesting insights by searching the current  
>> mailing lists  at the ASF, and even more on the old mailing list  
>> archives at  mail.ofbiz.org.
>> -David

[Jean-Sébastien HEDERER]

You should perhaps look for subjects on changing delegator.

"Torsten Schlabach" a écrit le 15/11/2006 22:33 :

> David,
>
> sorry if you're annoyed, but I haven't found anything about this
> subject in the archives.
>
> Maybe I did not use the correct search terms. If you look at this
> thread here, three other people have given the same answer, which I
> read as: There's no real feature for that, you'll have to create
> separate installations.
>
> Did I misread anything? Any pointer would be very beneficial. If there
> are good ways of doing this and nobody knows about it, it's a pitty,
> isn't it?
>
> Regards,
> Torsten
>
> David E Jones schrieb:
>>
>> On Nov 15, 2006, at 2:01 PM, Torsten Schlabach wrote:
>>
>>> your suggestion does make sense; that's for sure. I got the  
>>> impression that this hasn't been a topic yet as OFBiz has obviously  
>>> not yet been discovered by hosting providers. (Well, it has! We're  
>>> one and we're looking at it.)
>>
>>
>> That's not exactly true, though it may seem that way because we
>> don't  support the variety of shared deployment that you have in mind.
>>
>> Actually, in the last five years this has probably been discussed  
>> about 2000 times. Okay, that might be a small exaggeration, but  
>> realistically the number is probably about 40-50 and you'll find all  
>> sorts of interesting insights by searching the current mailing lists  
>> at the ASF, and even more on the old mailing list archives at  
>> mail.ofbiz.org.
>>
>> -David
>

[Si Chen-2]

If I may venture a guess, David is saying that OFBiz has been  
discovered by hosting providers.

Note that OFBiz is a very big application, and there is no real  
benefit to splitting one instance among several companies, because  
each company will require a lot of resources.  In general, OFBiz is  
suited for much larger companies than  an oscommerce-class product.  
(I'm not saying this to brag--it just is the way it is, not  
necessarily good or bad.)

On Nov 15, 2006, at 1:33 PM, Torsten Schlabach wrote:

> David,
>
> sorry if you're annoyed, but I haven't found anything about this  
> subject in the archives.
>
> Maybe I did not use the correct search terms. If you look at this  
> thread here, three other people have given the same answer, which I  
> read as: There's no real feature for that, you'll have to create  
> separate installations.
>
> Did I misread anything? Any pointer would be very beneficial. If  
> there are good ways of doing this and nobody knows about it, it's a  
> pitty, isn't it?
>
> Regards,
> Torsten
>
> David E Jones schrieb:
>> On Nov 15, 2006, at 2:01 PM, Torsten Schlabach wrote:
>>> your suggestion does make sense; that's for sure. I got the  
>>> impression that this hasn't been a topic yet as OFBiz has  
>>> obviously  not yet been discovered by hosting providers. (Well,  
>>> it has! We're  one and we're looking at it.)
>> That's not exactly true, though it may seem that way because we  
>> don't  support the variety of shared deployment that you have in  
>> mind.
>> Actually, in the last five years this has probably been discussed  
>> about 2000 times. Okay, that might be a small exaggeration, but  
>> realistically the number is probably about 40-50 and you'll find  
>> all  sorts of interesting insights by searching the current  
>> mailing lists  at the ASF, and even more on the old mailing list  
>> archives at  mail.ofbiz.org.
>> -David

Best Regards,

Si
[hidden email]

[Daniel Kunkel]

Hi

I know the virtual hosting idea has been discussed before, but I don't
see any agreement amongst the core developers with regards to the path
to take to implement this feature.

I understand that this is an open project, and any of us are free to
make the changes to the software ourselves, however, if we really are
going to move this direction as a community, it seems prudent to first
discuss the options and decide on a direction together. It seems that
until we have an agreed upon direction, it would likely be a waste of
time to take steps to implement this feature.

Specifically, I believe the decision at hand is how to handle multiple
copies of the multiple configuration files that are spread around the
project tree.

Some quick ideas:

1.) Copy property files that are unique:

payment.properties - default values
payment-metzia-com.properties - metzia's values
payment-aid-hearing-com.properties - aid-hearing's values

2.) Create Configuration Folders

Move all the configuration files to a new location in the project
directory tree. This would probably help the new OFBiz users with
setting up OFBiz since they would not have so much trouble finding all
of the files that need to be edited.

3.) Move most configuration data into the database

This has pros and cons.  It makes some things easier, but would be a
very large change for OFBiz. A configuration file would be required to
define the database connection details. A separate database could be
implemented to store all of the configuration information.

--

On a related note, a SAP user on the OpenTaps list recently shared
another idea that has some merit, adding an instance id to every table
in the database.

This scheme, of course, works very well in allowing multiple databases
to co-exist with little chance of data cross-over, and apparently has
worked well for the SAP team.

I, however, don't like the idea since every database table has another
field, and every query and join are needlessly made more complicated,
slowing the application down. Furthermore, it's easier to move complete
databases than it is to split and recombine them when moving a customer
from server to server.

--

Another issue I think we could be discusses is the possible "mating" of
different OFBiz instances. It seems like it would be a great if OFBiz
were able to have multiple OFBiz instances talk with one another. This
is a feature I liked in Compiere. The two most obvious applications were
for a vendor relationship allowing one company to see into the the
inventory and production of another, and in the accounting of a
division, allowing the the accounts to be combined in one of the
entities. Combining parties, party groups, and supplier information
might also be desirable.

Daniel


On Wed, 2006-11-15 at 14:22 -0700, David E Jones wrote:

> On Nov 15, 2006, at 2:01 PM, Torsten Schlabach wrote:
>
> > your suggestion does make sense; that's for sure. I got the  
> > impression that this hasn't been a topic yet as OFBiz has obviously  
> > not yet been discovered by hosting providers. (Well, it has! We're  
> > one and we're looking at it.)
>
> That's not exactly true, though it may seem that way because we don't  
> support the variety of shared deployment that you have in mind.
>
> Actually, in the last five years this has probably been discussed  
> about 2000 times. Okay, that might be a small exaggeration, but  
> realistically the number is probably about 40-50 and you'll find all  
> sorts of interesting insights by searching the current mailing lists  
> at the ASF, and even more on the old mailing list archives at  
> mail.ofbiz.org.
>
> -David

--
Daniel

*-.,,.-*"*-.,,.-*"*-.,,.-*"*-.,,.-*"*-.,,.-*"*-.,,.-*"*-.,,.-*"*-
Have a GREAT Day!

Daniel Kunkel           [hidden email]
BioWaves, LLC           http://www.BioWaves.com
14150 NE 20th St. Suite F1
Bellevue, WA 98007
800-734-3588    425-895-0050
http://www.Apartment-Pets.com  http://www.Illusion-Optical.com
http://www.Card-Offer.com      http://www.RackWine.com
http://www.JokesBlonde.com     http://www.Brain-Fun.com 
*-.,,.-*"*-.,,.-*"*-.,,.-*"*-.,,.-*"*-.,,.-*"*-.,,.-*"*-.,,.-*"*-