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OfBiz readiness for multi-tenancy

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Gopikrishna Gade

OfBiz readiness for multi-tenancy

Hi,

I just started exploring OfBiz for some of our initiatives. I wanted to
understand if OfBiz is architected for Multi-Tenancy scenarios. Can someone
provide insight?

Regards,

Gopi Gade

David E Jones-3

Re: OfBiz readiness for multi-tenancy

OFBiz works well OOTB for certain multi-tenant scenarios, but not for
others.

Could you be more specific about at least the scaling range that
you're going for?

BTW, one thing to consider is that because OFBiz is community driven
if a feature you're looking for doesn't exist, it means that no one
has developed and contributed it yet, and that's really all it means.
For large-scale multi-tenant functionality, there are not very many
companies like NetSuite and SalesForce.com and Yahoo Stores that have
investment adequate to implement, market (the big one!), and run such
an operation. Even someone did implement something like that because
it is such a small group of prospects for it, and any other user might
be a competitor, they might just keep that feature to themselves.

The unfortunate problem with support for large-scale multi-tenant
software is that most companies that try it totally fail and never get
a return on what they invest in the large-scale multi-tenant support.
There are a lot of us dreamers out there, and we're not always totally
realistic about what is necessary to get a return on our investment...
ie things like "how much will it cost in marketing and sales to sign
up the 1,000 tenants with at least 5 users each that we have
determined it will require to get a return on our development
expenses... and then how many MORE tenants will we need to cover that
marketing and sales expense?"

On a side note: because of the way OFBiz is architected (especially
with the entity engine) certain aspects of large-scale multi-tenancy
are actually pretty easy... ;) The REAL question is, do you really
have the funding to do even the easy stuff, and then move on to do the
more expensive and/or harder stuff?

-David

On Apr 8, 2009, at 2:19 AM, Gopikrishna Gade wrote:

> Hi,
>
> I just started exploring OfBiz for some of our initiatives. I wanted
> to
> understand if OfBiz is architected for Multi-Tenancy scenarios. Can
> someone
> provide insight?
>
>
>
> Regards,
>
> Gopi Gade
>

Michael Xu (xudong)

Re: OfBiz readiness for multi-tenancy

In reply to this post by Gopikrishna Gade

It depends on how you define "multi-tenancy". In my understanding, there
could be two definitions:

1) multiple instance withhin single box

It is not difficult to install multiple instances in one single box. Just
make sure no port conflict.

2) multiple tenants in single instance

I think you have to do customization, especially on access control part, to
make sure one tenant cannot access data owned by the other one. The
challenge here might be how to grant appropriate admin permissions to
different tenants.

--
Regards,
Michael Xu (xudong)
www.wizitsoft.com | Office: (8610) 6267 0615 ext 806 | Mobile: (86) 135 0135
9807 | Fax: (8610) 62670096

On Wed, Apr 8, 2009 at 4:19 PM, Gopikrishna Gade <
[hidden email]> wrote:

> Hi,
>
> I just started exploring OfBiz for some of our initiatives. I wanted to
> understand if OfBiz is architected for Multi-Tenancy scenarios. Can someone
> provide insight?
>
>
>
> Regards,
>
> Gopi Gade
>
>

Gopikrishna Gade

RE: OfBiz readiness for multi-tenancy

In reply to this post by David E Jones-3

I am in the exploration phase to assess the feasibility of multi-tenancy
based solution for our offering. Based on my findings, I am going to propose
options and look for funding from my management. I understand the
complexities of such a solution especially data, security and metadata. I am
going to review OfBiz architecture see what it means to support our needs.
We are possibly looking at 5 to 6 tenant each having upwards of 2000 users.

Gopi

-----Original Message-----
From: David E Jones [mailto:[hidden email]]
Sent: Wednesday, April 08, 2009 3:52 AM
To: [hidden email]
Subject: Re: OfBiz readiness for multi-tenancy

OFBiz works well OOTB for certain multi-tenant scenarios, but not for
others.

Could you be more specific about at least the scaling range that
you're going for?

BTW, one thing to consider is that because OFBiz is community driven
if a feature you're looking for doesn't exist, it means that no one
has developed and contributed it yet, and that's really all it means.
For large-scale multi-tenant functionality, there are not very many
companies like NetSuite and SalesForce.com and Yahoo Stores that have
investment adequate to implement, market (the big one!), and run such
an operation. Even someone did implement something like that because
it is such a small group of prospects for it, and any other user might
be a competitor, they might just keep that feature to themselves.

The unfortunate problem with support for large-scale multi-tenant
software is that most companies that try it totally fail and never get
a return on what they invest in the large-scale multi-tenant support.
There are a lot of us dreamers out there, and we're not always totally
realistic about what is necessary to get a return on our investment...
ie things like "how much will it cost in marketing and sales to sign
up the 1,000 tenants with at least 5 users each that we have
determined it will require to get a return on our development
expenses... and then how many MORE tenants will we need to cover that
marketing and sales expense?"

On a side note: because of the way OFBiz is architected (especially
with the entity engine) certain aspects of large-scale multi-tenancy
are actually pretty easy... ;) The REAL question is, do you really
have the funding to do even the easy stuff, and then move on to do the
more expensive and/or harder stuff?

-David

On Apr 8, 2009, at 2:19 AM, Gopikrishna Gade wrote:

David E Jones-3

Re: OfBiz readiness for multi-tenancy

For 5-6 tenants separate instances of OFBiz, running the same server
pool or on different ones as needed, is probably the best way to go.
You'll handle the thousands of users much better that way.

Generally "multi-tenant" functionality with a big/huge/etc single
instance is meant for thousands or tens (or hundreds!) of thousands of
tenants with only a few users for most of them.

-David

On Apr 8, 2009, at 4:32 AM, Gopikrishna Gade wrote:

> I am in the exploration phase to assess the feasibility of multi-
> tenancy
> based solution for our offering. Based on my findings, I am going to
> propose
> options and look for funding from my management. I understand the
> complexities of such a solution especially data, security and
> metadata. I am
> going to review OfBiz architecture see what it means to support our
> needs.
> We are possibly looking at 5 to 6 tenant each having upwards of 2000
> users.
>
> Gopi
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: David E Jones [mailto:[hidden email]]
> Sent: Wednesday, April 08, 2009 3:52 AM
> To: [hidden email]
> Subject: Re: OfBiz readiness for multi-tenancy
>
>
> OFBiz works well OOTB for certain multi-tenant scenarios, but not for
> others.
>
> Could you be more specific about at least the scaling range that
> you're going for?
>
> BTW, one thing to consider is that because OFBiz is community driven
> if a feature you're looking for doesn't exist, it means that no one
> has developed and contributed it yet, and that's really all it means.
> For large-scale multi-tenant functionality, there are not very many
> companies like NetSuite and SalesForce.com and Yahoo Stores that have
> investment adequate to implement, market (the big one!), and run such
> an operation. Even someone did implement something like that because
> it is such a small group of prospects for it, and any other user might
> be a competitor, they might just keep that feature to themselves.
>
> The unfortunate problem with support for large-scale multi-tenant
> software is that most companies that try it totally fail and never get
> a return on what they invest in the large-scale multi-tenant support.
> There are a lot of us dreamers out there, and we're not always totally
> realistic about what is necessary to get a return on our investment...
> ie things like "how much will it cost in marketing and sales to sign
> up the 1,000 tenants with at least 5 users each that we have
> determined it will require to get a return on our development
> expenses... and then how many MORE tenants will we need to cover that
> marketing and sales expense?"
>
> On a side note: because of the way OFBiz is architected (especially
> with the entity engine) certain aspects of large-scale multi-tenancy
> are actually pretty easy... ;) The REAL question is, do you really
> have the funding to do even the easy stuff, and then move on to do the
> more expensive and/or harder stuff?
>
> -David
>
>
> On Apr 8, 2009, at 2:19 AM, Gopikrishna Gade wrote:
>
>> Hi,
>>
>> I just started exploring OfBiz for some of our initiatives. I wanted
>> to
>> understand if OfBiz is architected for Multi-Tenancy scenarios. Can
>> someone
>> provide insight?
>>
>>
>>
>> Regards,
>>
>> Gopi Gade
>>
>
>
>

Marc Morin

Re: OfBiz readiness for multi-tenancy

We have chosen the path for multi-tenancy to have a separate database instance for each tenant, yet share the same server complex amongst the tenants.

Our application is the reverse in terms of scalability. 10's of users for each of 1000s of tenants. For such a case, it is obviously not economical to have a deployment of the app server for each customer.

Data security is best solved with segregating each into their own database instance. Also, allows tenant direct jdbc/odbc access to their data if they want to run some special reports, etc.

I guess, you can put us down to being one of the "dreamers" then...

Jacques Le Roux

Re: OfBiz readiness for multi-tenancy

Administrator

Hi Marc,

Sounds like a line in the 1st table at http://docs.ofbiz.org/display/OFBIZ/Apache+OFBiz+User+List (rendering currently broken in
some browsers but editing is OK)

Thanks

Jacques

From: "Marc Morin" <[hidden email]>

>
> We have chosen the path for multi-tenancy to have a separate database
> instance for each tenant, yet share the same server complex amongst the
> tenants.
>
> Our application is the reverse in terms of scalability. 10's of users for
> each of 1000s of tenants. For such a case, it is obviously not economical
> to have a deployment of the app server for each customer.
>
> Data security is best solved with segregating each into their own database
> instance. Also, allows tenant direct jdbc/odbc access to their data if they
> want to run some special reports, etc.
>
> I guess, you can put us down to being one of the "dreamers" then...
> --
> View this message in context: http://www.nabble.com/OfBiz-readiness-for-multi-tenancy-tp22944731p23113780.html
> Sent from the OFBiz - User mailing list archive at Nabble.com.
>

Marc Morin

Re: OfBiz readiness for multi-tenancy

Yes, I added our offering information to the table.

Marc Morin
Emforium Group Inc.
ALL-IN Software™
519-772-6824 ext 201
[hidden email]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Jacques Le Roux" <[hidden email]>
To: [hidden email]
Sent: Saturday, April 18, 2009 11:14:13 AM GMT -05:00 US/Canada Eastern
Subject: Re: OfBiz readiness for multi-tenancy

Hi Marc,

Sounds like a line in the 1st table at http://docs.ofbiz.org/display/OFBIZ/Apache+OFBiz+User+List (rendering currently broken in
some browsers but editing is OK)

Thanks

Jacques

From: "Marc Morin" <[hidden email]>