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heinz.yu

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2 months ago

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heinz.yu

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November 14th, 2005 14:00

Folder replication between 2 servers

Hello!
 
I was wondering if there's a third party solution or if Microsoft's Server 2003 Standard has this feature built in:
 
I have 2 stand-alone servers, both running Windows Server 2003 Standard in two geographical sites.
 
Site A has a folder called ItemsA and Site B has a folder called ItemsB.
 
I would like ItemsA and ItemsB to be available in their opposite server, such that if a user from Site A goes to Site B, both folders (ItemsA and ItemsB) are available to them.
 
Mapping a drive is one solution, but if one endpoint goes down, the other folder is not available to the other site.
 
Any help/suggestions would be greatly appreciated!
 
Warm regards,
 
Heindrick
  • jmwills

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    Posted November 15th, 2005 17:00

    Microsoft just came out with a new program that does this, and for the life of me I can not remember the name of it.  Something like Sync Toy.....
  • jmwills

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    Posted November 16th, 2005 06:00

    SyncToy will work on (to) a Server.  I've run it from an XP machine to a 2003 machine.
  • sdcarroll

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    Posted November 16th, 2005 06:00

    SyncToy is for XP.
     
    NSI DoubleTake is an enterprise-product for Windows.  It ain't cheap, but it can do much more than folder synchronization.
  • sdcarroll

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    Posted November 16th, 2005 07:00

    That's good to know.  Does it work from server to server?
  • jmwills

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    Posted November 16th, 2005 08:00

    I would say yes becasue the base 2003 kernel is the same as the XP kernel, as far as I know.  ONly one way to find out.
  • heinz.yu

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    Posted November 16th, 2005 12:00

    Hello Everyone!
     
    Thanks for the recommendations!  I took a look at DoubleTake and even spoke to their support engineers about the synchronization issue.  Unfortunately, it doesn't do two way sync.  It's really a product that's used for disaster recovery and high availability.
     
    I'll look into SyncToy and test it out.
     
    All the best,
     
    Heindrick
  • pcmeiners

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    Posted November 17th, 2005 20:00

    You will find out it has the same limitation as DoubleTake (great product)..two exact copies of directories, across a WAN have no way of maintaining write syncs, if the writes are committed at both ends. Best you can do is file replication, with no guarantee open files will be usable if the link is down.. database files would be the biggest problem.
     
     
  • heinz.yu

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    Posted November 17th, 2005 21:00

    Hello Everyone!
     
    UPDATE: I've installed SyncToy in my lab between 1 Windows 2003 Standard Server and a client machine.  It looks like this is what I want.  However, the points illustrated above hold true (regarding simultaneous writes, etc.).
     
    Luckilly for me, the folders in question aren't very dynamic and they just hold Office documents (Word, Excel and Powerpoint).
     
    Many thanks to the people who pointed it out.  We'll be looking to bringing in Double Take as well.
     
    All the best,
     
    Heindrick
  • pcmeiners

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    Posted November 17th, 2005 21:00

    With just Word an Excel files, you should have the minimum of problems, other then dealing with open files. Hope it works out.
     
     
  • jmwills

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    Posted November 18th, 2005 02:00

    Just make sure you have Volume Shadow Copying enabled and the clients can still work on the docs while the work is being done.

    Google for Second Copy 2000 also.  I used it a few years back and it was good also.