Partitions keep data physically separate for each tenant. Partitions can exist in the same storage area or different storage areas. All multi-tenant objects are required to reside in a Type II area. If an object has an allocation state that indicates not to allocate data, then the partition is not created. Additionally, access to a partition can be disabled without deleting the data. For more information on Type II areas, see OpenEdge architecture.

The following figure depicts the allocation of data objects across storage areas in a multi-tenant database with two defined tenants, ABC Corp and BUS Corp.

Figure 1. Physical storage in an multi-tenant database


The left-hand side of the figure shows the logical representation of the database, and shows two regular tenants and the default tenant. The Shared section represents data that all tenants can access. The Shared section contains all non-multi-tenant data as well as the database schema area.

The right-hand side of the figure shows a representation of the physical storage of the database. In this example, each tenant has a distinct area for each default area.

Note: Multi-tenant partitions must be stored in Type II areas. Shared data can be stored in either Type I or Type II areas. The schema area is always a Type I area.

The following figure depicts data access. Users for a specific domain can access the data for the tenant associated with the domain, and the shared data. Users who do not specify a domain are assigned to the default tenant, and can only access the default tenant and shared data.

Figure 2. Data access