Should I use the default dbo or a custom schema for common tables in multi-tenant database?

Question

I have a database that's going to record data for different customers. Most of the customers have the same data requirements; however, that's not always the case. For the different requirements, I'm going to create extension tables that are going to be specific for their needs. For each customer, I'm going to create a schema and I will then put the specific extension tables, views, etc under their schema.

However, for the common data tables, should I create those under the default dbo schema or should I create a new schema instead?

Thank You.

Answer 1

I would create a Common schema. You don't want to give your users access to the dbo schema if you can help it. Especially if you have stats, etc there.

Schemas are a great way to separate namespaces as well as administer security. Take advantage of that and organize your databases as simply as possible. It makes it much more readable when you're going through that list of tables!