Ben, Have you investigated Oracle8i's "Virtual Private Database" feature - A.K.A. Fine-Grained Access Control (FGAC) or Row-Level Security (DBMS_RLS). It's available in 8i EE.
It keeps users logically separate, even if you only use one schema. I believe it would be much easier to maintain than hundreds of schemas - adding/deleting rows is much easier than adding/dropping schemas and their objects. I implemented FGAC in an internationally-accessed Web-based application in which each customer's data was kept separate from every others, but in a single schema. Works very well. Jack -------------------------------- Jack C. Applewhite Database Administrator/Developer OCP Oracle8 DBA iNetProfit, Inc. Austin, Texas www.iNetProfit.com [EMAIL PROTECTED] (512)327-9068 -----Original Message----- Sent: Wednesday, March 06, 2002 1:29 PM To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L Hi Our university wants to set up a server that will provide groups on campus with a standard set of services for web hosting, data collection or whatever they want to do. As much as possible each user should have their own isolated chunk of the server. An Oracle database will sit in the background to provide whatever database services they need. My thought is to go with one instance with a unique schema, including separate tablespaces/datafiles, for each user. Some of the pros for this are: - easy set up for new users - easy software upgrades - simplified tuning, backups, monitoring, auditing - user isolation, especially disk space usage - multiple instances would use far more memory Some cons are: - everyone must use the same release of the software - database down time affects everyone - might run into system maximums, for example max. number of datafiles - an enormous SYSTEM tablespace Has anyone had to this kind of thing? Any comments or suggestions? TIA, Ben ====================================================================== Ben Poels - Senior Technical Analyst - Queen's University at Kingston Phone: 613.533.2449 Fax: 613.533.2168 Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ====================================================================== -- Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.com -- Author: Jack C. Applewhite INET: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Fat City Network Services -- (858) 538-5051 FAX: (858) 538-5051 San Diego, California -- Public Internet access / Mailing Lists -------------------------------------------------------------------- To REMOVE yourself from this mailing list, send an E-Mail message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (note EXACT spelling of 'ListGuru') and in the message BODY, include a line containing: UNSUB ORACLE-L (or the name of mailing list you want to be removed from). You may also send the HELP command for other information (like subscribing).