Using multi-database design - opinions?

[Chris Bassett]

I'm taking on a pretty large project and am creating a product matrix, that asks the users as series of questions and then queries a look-up table.

The first step is going to be ask the user what type of farm equipment they have (this information will be from a series of predefined dropdown lists run by AJAX), and then additional questions will follow depending on what is selected.

What my question is, is what people's opinions are about having two databases (or multiple databases) as opposed to one large database.

What I"m thinking is I'd like to put the "static" data, like the planter configuration and manufacturer info in one database, and then have another database for the questions, lookup tables, etc, which may be modified weekly or fairly often, where as the "static" set of data (planter configuration and models) would be modified maybe once per year, if even that.

I'm thinking of protection against corruption, and also to separate things out. Is a two-database model a bad idea? Is there any performance benefit or problems with multiple databases? I also was thinking that the static database can be used elsewhere on the site as well, and not just for the product matrix.

Ideas or opinions?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/10/2013 11:22AM by Chris Bassett.