Database Vs Schema

We currently have a product in which each client has their own Database. We adjust the connection when a user for that client logs into the system. This system has continued to grow and a good pace, but we have come to a point where failover is taking too long.



Refactoring the Database to handle multiple sites in a single database is not an option because of the time it would take to make the change. So, we are looking for another way in which this could be handle. One idea is to take multiple clients and place them in a single database using a schema to seperate them. (ex. Client A = server1.db1.schema1, Client B = server1.db1.schema2, etc).



Is there another option that would be better, or what kind of performance can we expect if we follow this path? Or, is there a way to decrease the failover time (it appears the problem is the startup of the database on the failover server)?



Thad