Shared Product and Category Server

We want to be able to have a store and allow resellers to have their own separate stores that can read from our constantly updating products, images, and categories.

This is not a multi-site type of setup. All the other stores would be completely separate. Hosted separately, etc..

We just want them to use a common product (category) database.

I am guessing we would need to open the external database and define those external tables for products, categories, etc.. Also would remove the ability from the admin to alter the products and categories.

Each store would have its own orders and customer databases along with config. Only the products need to be shared.

Any thoughts on where to start?

Generally speaking, building this type of bridge will give you a ton of PCI and security headaches. Rather a possible better choice is to export the data, daily or whatever and the individual shops need only import the daily feed... Look for Easy Populate in the addons, then you only need a custom dump from your main store to generate the feed and store it for download or direct call.

~Melanie

That is not really an option.. 50000 plus items and images. We have been doing it that way and it is not effective for our purposes.

The other option is a master-slave setup but I don't think you can only replicate a few tables. I think it would need to be the entire database.