Multiple sites from one database!

[AndyH]

I'd like some advise or case studdies on running multiple websites from one database.
I'm looking to use either MySQL or MS SQL.
At the moment i'm using individual Access Databse's for each of our sites, but now the sites are growing, i would like to centralise the data. The sites are e-commerce, but i will also be creating microsites which are fed from the one database.
Another requirement is to pull data from our local Sage MS SQL database to feed live stock control of the e-commerce sites.
How feasible is this? and what security issues should i be thinking about?
In short, i want to use a robust DB to serve our websites (we rent virtual hosting from a local company)but also pull data from our Sage databse which we host internally).
A bit of a tough one i reckon, but hope to get some helpful replies.

Thanks in advance
Andy

[ryanbutler]

I'm more familiar with MS SQL Server, but my SQL is a work horse, especially on Unix/Lixus platforms. Either one would work for your needs. Security is how you look at it:


What data are you storing and how classified is it?
Who has access to the data, system admins or developers, customers, or a combination?
If you're writing applications that access the data, what security precautions are you taking to keep unauthorized people out?


You'll have to migrate the data from Access to it's big brother. I've never done that before, but I'd assume that would go fairly smoothly. Main thing would be changing data types, like text in Access to varchar or nvarchar for it's big brother.

Just some of my initial thoughts.

[AndyH]

Thanks Ryan
Data from the Web database (mysql or ms sql) populates the product info, order details, customer details (no credit card info, we use a payment gateway), etc...
Our Sage DB holds sensitive data and must NOT be compromised.
At present, i only see the need for our web application to read/write data to the Sage stock field, but i'm waiting to get a copy of our Sage DB to look at to figure out how stock is controlled.
Any thoughts apprecited.

Andy

[ryanbutler]

Web form security, that's always fun. You'd have to look at:


Authentication, which isn't terribly difficult depending on how you implement it
Validation (client and server side), which again, isn't terribly difficult w/ PHP or ASP.NET
Protecting against SQL injection attacks, which in my personal opinion is handled better by .NET


Basic crud operations on a database from a web form isn't rocket science, so that should be cake for the most part.