Entity Framework and multi-tenancy database design

Posted by Junto on Stack Overflow See other posts from Stack Overflow or by Junto
Published on 2010-05-30T12:33:16Z Indexed on 2010/05/30 13:22 UTC
Read the original article Hit count: 1343

I am looking at multi-tenancy database schema design for an SaaS concept. It will be ASP.NET MVC -> EF, but that isn't so important.

Below you can see an example database schema (the Tenant being the Company). The CompanyId is replicated throughout the schema and the primary key has been placed on both the natural key, plus the tenant Id.

Plugging this schema into the Entity Framework gives the following errors when I add the tables into the Entity Model file (Model1.edmx):

  • The relationship 'FK_Order_Customer' uses the set of foreign keys '{CustomerId, CompanyId}' that are partially contained in the set of primary keys '{OrderId, CompanyId}' of the table 'Order'. The set of foreign keys must be fully contained in the set of primary keys, or fully not contained in the set of primary keys to be mapped to a model.
  • The relationship 'FK_OrderLine_Customer' uses the set of foreign keys '{CustomerId, CompanyId}' that are partially contained in the set of primary keys '{OrderLineId, CompanyId}' of the table 'OrderLine'. The set of foreign keys must be fully contained in the set of primary keys, or fully not contained in the set of primary keys to be mapped to a model.
  • The relationship 'FK_OrderLine_Order' uses the set of foreign keys '{OrderId, CompanyId}' that are partially contained in the set of primary keys '{OrderLineId, CompanyId}' of the table 'OrderLine'. The set of foreign keys must be fully contained in the set of primary keys, or fully not contained in the set of primary keys to be mapped to a model.
  • The relationship 'FK_Order_Customer' uses the set of foreign keys '{CustomerId, CompanyId}' that are partially contained in the set of primary keys '{OrderId, CompanyId}' of the table 'Order'. The set of foreign keys must be fully contained in the set of primary keys, or fully not contained in the set of primary keys to be mapped to a model.
  • The relationship 'FK_OrderLine_Customer' uses the set of foreign keys '{CustomerId, CompanyId}' that are partially contained in the set of primary keys '{OrderLineId, CompanyId}' of the table 'OrderLine'. The set of foreign keys must be fully contained in the set of primary keys, or fully not contained in the set of primary keys to be mapped to a model.
  • The relationship 'FK_OrderLine_Order' uses the set of foreign keys '{OrderId, CompanyId}' that are partially contained in the set of primary keys '{OrderLineId, CompanyId}' of the table 'OrderLine'. The set of foreign keys must be fully contained in the set of primary keys, or fully not contained in the set of primary keys to be mapped to a model.
  • The relationship 'FK_OrderLine_Product' uses the set of foreign keys '{ProductId, CompanyId}' that are partially contained in the set of primary keys '{OrderLineId, CompanyId}' of the table 'OrderLine'. The set of foreign keys must be fully contained in the set of primary keys, or fully not contained in the set of primary keys to be mapped to a model.

The question is in two parts:

  1. Is my database design incorrect? Should I refrain from these compound primary keys? I'm questioning my sanity regarding the fundamental schema design (frazzled brain syndrome). Please feel free to suggest the 'idealized' schema.
  2. Alternatively, if the database design is correct, then is EF unable to match the keys because it perceives these foreign keys as a potential mis-configured 1:1 relationships (incorrectly)? In which case, is this an EF bug and how can I work around it?

Multi-tenancy database schema

© Stack Overflow or respective owner

Related posts about entity-framework

Related posts about database-design