one customer database for multiple different business

[samvb]

Alo all,

We are targeting specific kind of customers who use different kind of services such as fashion shops, cosmetics etc. This service providers just buy a package (domain, web site, db etc) and they are good to go. Now they customers are repeated time and again and so a single customer is registered 5-6 times in a single computer running mysql server with database for each service.

I want to have a single customers table and make it avaliable to the business underground. I donno how I would go about it since a customer can be registered (Action queries) and authenticated (fetch queries).

Does my idea make any sense from a development and security point of view? Any idea on how to handle it?

[zmbd]

In any RDMS you would create a table that holds just the customer information and other tables to hold other information.

Sensitive information (SSN/TaxID,Passwords,etc...) ALWAYS needs to be secured, preferably hashed, or at least using very strong encryption.

Security, the more people you give access to the data, the less secure it will become - period. IMHO, it is unconscionable to provide a general list for multiple business to share no mater what the filtering is on that compiled data. Look at the number of data-breaches that are reported daily and we have no idea how many actually happen as business do not appear to routinely disclose such information. And there are criminal organizations that appear to have been using false credentials to appear to be legitimate businesses that have obtained personal information under false pretense. IMHO, it is a better to provide a file with the sub-data to each business as they require it and allow them to build their own records "on the fly."

Although this link relates to Access, the concept of database normalization and structuring will still basically hold true:
home > topics > microsoft access / vba > insights > database normalization and table structures

You might also like to review:
home > topics > mysql database > insights > mysql basic tutorial