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Raven DB creating multiple Databases to support different replication strategies.

Recently I was tasked with creating an additional raven database to store information pertaining to users. So the solution I working on would have some information in one Raven database and user information in another Raven Database. The reason for the request is so we could support different replications strategies for the two databases. Given my understanding raven only supports a single replication strategy per RavenDB.

First I would like to know if anyone has created an application with two raven databases?

Second I would like to know what problems you might have encountered, and a general sense of what issues I can plan for or mitigate early on?

Thank you ahead of time,

micvp007
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Having multiple Raven databases is possible, but only advisable in certain situations.

If each database could potentially be on a different server (as one would assume since you're talking about replicating differently) then each must have its own DocumentStore, which is fairly expensive to set up, but this only should happen once at application startup anyway, and you're talking about 2, not 50.

As Matt mentions in the comments, if you have two databases on the same server, then you can use the same DocumentStore and specify the database name when you open the session.

Each database should be for logically very different things. You won't easily be able to commingle data between the two databases. If a document in one database contained a reference to a document id in the other database, you wouldn't be able to use the Include features to get both of those documents in one round trip - there would essentially be a wall between the databases. Indexes could not span between the databases, for example.

Accessing both databases would require spinning up an IDocumentSession for each, both of which would need to be managed separately. If you're managing your document sessions at an infrastructure level (i.e. one session per HTTP request) then having two complicates things quite a bit.

However, if you have a segmented type of application, this can work quite well. For example, if you had a Users database that provided single sign-on across multiple websites (or areas of a website) then this could be a good fit. On most pages the user info would be essentially read-only (like to display the black bar at the top of Stack Overflow), except for the user management pages.

This could also be common if you're going for an Udi Dahan style SOA application structure where you define service boundaries and each service has its own independent database.

David Boike
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    You don't need a separate `DocumentStore` instance per database. You can provide the DB name when you create a session. You only need multiple `DocumentStore` instances if you're talking to different databases on different servers. – Matt Johnson-Pint Dec 17 '13 at 21:20
  • I would like a second opinion since I know the person who answered the post. – micvp007 Dec 17 '13 at 21:25
  • I am talking about having separate RavenDBs on separate servers with a separate replication strategy – micvp007 Dec 17 '13 at 21:32
  • Thanks Matt! Forgot about the option to open sessions to different databases on the same server via 1 doc store. Edited my answer. – David Boike Dec 17 '13 at 21:58