Question: one sugar crm installation multiple admin/many installations?

[nedeljko75]

I am new to SugarCRM, and reading documentation about it, testing it and so on.
And of course I have one question, before I decide to choose sugarCRM for my project.

Is it possible to have totaly idenpendant sections in sugarCRM, except maybe main administrator. Actually I would like to offer one sugarCRM membership to many companies, so every company will have their own local administrators(who may add new users,contacts, doing backup of their databases), users, clients and everything else.

The reason why I want this is because I plan to customize sugarCRM for specific business area, and users will pay mambership(suppport) fees for using software.

If that is not possible with one instance of sugarcrm, another possability would be to have more installation of sugarcrm, but that will be harder to maintain/giving support. Also I read in one of forums, that it would be problem if there would be more then 50-60 installation, because number of mysql instances.

So I would really appricate if somebody who is much more experianced with sugarcrm to suggest me some ideas, and what would be the best sollution. I may decide for another option later when I get more familiriazed with software, but ned quick ideas now!!!!


Thanks in advance,
Ivica

[mycrmspacegunnar]

Hi Ivica,

I work for a professional SUGAR hoster.
So here are my answers to your questions.

I am new to SugarCRM, and reading documentation about it, testing it and so on.
And of course I have one question, before I decide to choose sugarCRM for my project.

Is it possible to have totaly idenpendant sections in sugarCRM, except maybe main administrator. Actually I would like to offer one sugarCRM membership to many companies, so every company will have their own local administrators(who may add new users,contacts, doing backup of their databases), users, clients and everything else.

No, this is not possible!
Sugar is NOT able to handle multible different customers with one Sugar install.
You will need one complete Sugar installation for each of your customers.

All users on one Sugar installation will share one look and feel.
They all will use the same layout for quotes and the admin will have access to all records.

The reason why I want this is because I plan to customize sugarCRM for specific business area, and users will pay mambership(suppport) fees for using software.

Per company using your service you will need one Sugar installation.

If that is not possible with one instance of sugarcrm, another possability would be to have more installation of sugarcrm, but that will be harder to maintain/giving support. Also I read in one of forums, that it would be problem if there would be more then 50-60 installation, because number of mysql instances.

No, this only halve way true.

All your Sugar installations can of course share one database server.
This is no problem at all.
Its common practise to use one database server for multible web servers.

What you need to take care of is number one

Security :
Sugar uses "selfmodifying" PHP code and needs full write access to the webserver.
And Sugar allows uploading off modules.
- You will need to disable the module uploading or
your client will be able to take over your complete hosting environment.

- You will need to be very carefull in fully seperating multible Sugar installations that are on one physical webserver against each other or your client would be able to read and manipulate the records of the others.


Your main challenge with 50-60 customer will be the webserver Load
Sugar is a real demanding web applications.
If you have for example 50 customer each 5 users then this will be 250 people
using your server. Sugar is too demanding for a single machine to provide a good servie to so many users.
Of course this depends a lot on the working pattern of your users but as a ballpark number we use one well tuned dual core webserver for max 100 users.

So I would really appricate if somebody who is much more experianced with sugarcrm to suggest me some ideas, and what would be the best sollution. I may decide for another option later when I get more familiriazed with software, but ned quick ideas now!!!!

As always the challenge is the detail.

Just installing Sugar for testing is a "no brainer"
but you should NEVER let a professional customer use Sugar with the default installion!

There are many details ranging from websecurity to database stability
which require someone with experience in administrating both areas
before you want to use let your customer rely on your service.
Its very important to securer your webserver fully when you use one server fopr more than one customer.


Please read also the my post in this thread
http://www.sugarcrm.com/forums/showt...light=achilles
The post will higlight some database tripfalls that you will need to change to ensure reliabilty.


Cheers
Gunnar

[nedeljko75]

Thanks for your reply, I expected that it will not be able to use same installation for more then one clients, and also I expected that there will be some limits of number of users, as sugarcrm is for small/med sized companies.
I will have to think about best solution, that will suit our needs.

Thanks once again for your reply,
Ivica

[pblag]

Hi All!

I think that it is possible to develop the functionality for using many databases.
We need to add new login page and after that we have to update connecting to database functionality.

I know how to do it.

If you are interested please email to me and we will develop it for you.

[pniranjan]

That's a good idea at the database level. But, if you are having a single Sugarcrm installation, how do you plan to control Custom folders (that store custom fields info, etc) for each client?

Regards,
Niranjan