Designing multi tenant app in rails -

i'm implementing multi tenant app rails. approach not use postgres inbuilt multi tenant feature , add column record subdomain. question :)

let's example

class organisation < activerecord::base   has_many :users end  class user < activerecord::base   belongs_to :organisation end 

i'm thinking 2 approaches here,

approach 1

add subdomain column organisations

• pros - way how relational databases should work \0/
• cons - when have more complex queries , make code slow

approach 2

add subdomain column both organisations , users

• pros - make queries faster
• cons - i'm going against relational databases

so question is, sort of method should follow between above two, or there different approach didnt think about

thanks in advance

we run multi-tenant rails app fewer 500 table-backed classes, , if had guess i'd around 400 of them relate client data.

client-specific attributes held in client model, add client_id every client table not null constraint on database. minority of them indexed, though because accessed through parent record.

we not have worry setting client id because model have:

class child    after_initialize     self.client ||= parent.client   end  end 

we add client_id many tables because have lot of code does:

@books = current_user.client.books 

... in cases we'll have association directly client model, , client_id indexed.

we add client_id tables, though, because often, operational or unusual reasons, want able find of relevant records client ...

marketingtext.where(client: client.snowbooks).group(:type).count 

... , having go through parent record inconvenient.

also, because made decision on client-specific tables, not have make decision on each one.

so question, add subdomain organisation only. however, add organisation_id column every table holding organisation-specific data.

if have lot of clients going familiar subdomain, write meta-program method on organisation lets use:

organisation.some_subdomain 

... required organisation, find child records (in table) association directly organisation model ...

organisation.some_subdomain.users organisation.some_subdomain.prices organisation.some_subdomain.whatevers