Q: How do I build a multi-site installation

A: In eZ Publish there are options that allow for every type of multi-site architecture, on a single eZ Publish installation, or spanning several.

Depending on the requirements of the business, it is possible to:

• Implement a site factory for small stand-alone Web sites, and make the deployment of a new Web site fully automated at the push of a button. This might simply deploy a new Web site, with its own full eZ Publish content management system, including a choice of site package system models. This is a common solution used by software providers as a service for Small and Medium Businesses to provide a low-price solution to maintaining an on-line presence.
• Implement a very large scale galaxy of Web sites that might share some part of their content across a unified database, used for all the Web sites, or by relying on syndication functionalities.
• Use a single eZ Publish installation, but deploy stand-alone Web sites on top of it, with a dedicated content database and autonomous content management for each access assigned to different teams. This is a common set-up for international corporations that might want to share infrastructure and IT resources, but keep each of its department or daughter companies strictly isolated from a content management point of view.
• Use a single content database and eZ Publish installation and simply plug each Web site into it at various places in its content tree.