Advice on Replication

[BNPMike]

I have some new users who will be on a separate network, on several sites. I've never used replication before. It seems very well designed but does it work? Your experiences and suggestions would be of great interest.

 

[orna]

try:

http://groups-beta.google.com/group/microsoft.public.access.replication?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8

 

[orna]

It works nice if you can establish a network synchronization
(not through modem), the amount of new records is not too large, the data changes are not too massive.

HTH

 

[MoLaker]

It works nice if you can establish a network synchronization (not through modem), the amount of new records is not too large, the data changes are not too massive.

And someone "manages" the synchronization.


Replication is NOT a "set it and forget it" process. In active databases where data may be inputted or edited in more than one replica, conflicts will occur. Jet Replication will track these to a point and allow someone to resolve the conflicts. But, let too many pile up and replication will fail.

 

[orna]

Like someone said: it's like being a babysitter.

 

[BNPMike]

In the Microsoft FAQs it says you can't (ie couldn't at the time) synchronize by email. That's the way I wanted to do it - send a copy by email and let them connect to it and replicate. How could Access tell the difference between that and synchronizing directly across a network.

 

[orna]

If you want to send them a mail - *not with replication*.
Build queries and update the main DB with the changes you receive in the mail.

 

[Remou]

Hi
I found using email a nightmare. You send someone a copy to update, it is returned and a new, updated copy sent out. The user promptly forgets about the new copy, updates the old copy and returns that. Hope you have better users, and a better system!

 

[MoLaker]

If you have access to an Windows based Internet server, it is possible to replicate over the Internet. I've never tried it and I would imagine it would NOT be simple.

On the otherhand,

I have some new users who will be on a separate network, on several sites

are these networks within a company WAN? If so (and with your network administrator's cooperation), you may be able to perform replication even though the users are on different subnets. Check with your net guys.

 

[BNPMike]

are these networks within a company WAN?

Unfortunately the organisation (a large bank) is paranoid about security and won't allow traffic between the lans (originally 3 different companies).

I've loved the concept of disconnected shared databases for many years so I think I'm going to implement this come-what-may. It looks very sophisticated (in Jet).