[postgis-users] Multiuser system question

[David Blasby]

Alexander Pucher wrote:

> Hi,
> 
> I hope that my question is clear enough to be answered.
> 
> I'm setting up a multiuser system with PostGIS and UMN MapServer. When 
> the user starts the system, a unique id is assigned to the session.
> 
> I offer the user a selection of "default" geometry sets to work with. 
> During the session, the user can buffer geometries, which are stored as 
> new geometry tables in the system. To keep track of the various 
> users/tables, I have a kind of "lookup table", referencing the unique id 
> with the geometry tables.
> 
> The question is a rather pragmatic one. Should I set up one lookup-table 
> and store all default tables along with all table references that all 
> users create, or create a seperate lookup table for every session that 
> is started? So consider 500 people with each more then 20 geometry 
> tables working on the system the same time. What is more performant: all 
> users working on one big table or working on several smaller ones?


You might want to check out postgresql's temporary tables.  I'm not sure 
what kind of performance hit you take for using them, but I imagine that 
its quite small compared to the headache of actually managing real 
tables....


dave