How should I structure my database to gain maximum efficiently in this scenario?
- by Bob Jansen
I'm developing a PHP script that analyzes the web traffic of my clients websites. By placing a link to a javascript on the clients website (think of Google Analyses), my script harvests information like: the visitors IP address, reference link, current page link, user agent, etc. Now my clients can view these statistics via a control panel that I have build. These clients can also adjust profile settings, set firewall rules, create support tickets and pay invoices.
Currently all the the traffic is stored in one table. You can imagine that this tabel would become very large as some my clients receive thousands of pageviews per day. Furthermore, all the traffic data of each client would be stored in the same table, creating a mess. This is the same for the firewall rules currently, and the invoice and support system. I'm looking for way to structure my database in a more organized way to hold large amounts of data of multiple users.
This is the first project that I'm developing that deals with so much data, and would like to hear suggestions and tips. I was thinking of using multiple databases to structure the data. The main database will store users data (email,pass,id,etc) admin/website settings. Than each client will have an unique database labeled prefix_userid, which carry tables holding their traffic, invoice, and support ticket data.
Would this be a solution, and would it slow down or speed up overall performances (that is spreading the data over muliple databases). I have a solid VPS, but would like to safe and be as effient as possible.