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nic
Posting Yak Master
209 Posts |
 Posted - 2004-02-04 : 11:30:30
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| Hi,I have a dilemma and I'm not sure the best way to handle it. Our company builds online home and auto insurance rating programs for various companies. I've be trying to design a robust database model which will store the data. The front end is customizable so all clients use the same code base. The idea was each company would have a different rating engine dll which would store all the specific calculations for that company. If we got a new client, we build a new rating dll but the rest remains the same. This works well, but each clients rating data is completely different. I have tried to build general data structures which will hold different types of data but some companies have completely different structures. That being said, the base database needs to be customized for each client. 70% of all the tables for each client don't change but 30% is completely different. It would be nice if we could have one base database but I don't really see how. I have played with the idea of separating the rating data into a different database in order to keep the main core intact but I'm not sure if that is the best alternative. Has anyone run into similar problems? I'm beginning to think the struggle to keep a base db isn't worth it and just have different databases for each client. The problem with this is, if there is a change to the core part of the db, that change would need to be replicated for all clients (this in the end will be a headache). I'm not sure if there really is an answer but you guys have good ideas and I was curious what you thought.Another option I was thinking would to add a prefix to each rating table/sproc name. This way there will be different code bases but at least it will be easier to determine all the rating tables/sprocsbtw, this is my 100th post. 95 questions, 5 answers ;)ThanksNic |
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nr
SQLTeam MVY
12543 Posts |
Posted - 2004-02-04 : 12:47:55
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| You could hold the core structure fixed then have a table to define the extra attributes.Something liketablename, colname, dataypethen another table to hold the actual datatablename, colname, PKVal, colvalIn that way you can add attributes for each company without changing the structure.The rating dll would just get the values from the table.==========================================Cursors are useful if you don't know sql.DTS can be used in a similar way.Beer is not cold and it isn't fizzy. |
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Database design issue