[AccessD] Replication - how can I tell if indirect occurring

First of all, let me apologize for the slow response. The last two-three
days there has been an area-wide net-outage here. (Class action suit anyone?
I notice the bill doesn't change when it's the ISP's fault.)

Why do you want indirect synchs, particularly when the servers can see one
another? I don't see the logic here. Indirect is designed for situations
where the BE's cannot always see each other, for example a laptop in a
distant hotel used by a travelling salesperson, who connects using the net
and uses FTP for replication. If the replicas can see each other and you
don't want replication to happen automatically, don't use the synchronizer.
Instead do a manual (unmanaged) replication. /Tools/Replication/Synchronize
Now, IIRC. Further, I still don't understand your need for three
synchronizers. One can do it all, AFIAK. Of course, maybe I'm missing
something important here.

Finally, I have never experimented with replicating an FE, only a BE. But
for a long time (until we moved to SQL 2000), I replicated the BE's all over
the place without issues. At one point, there were over 70 replicas,
distributed across 4 branch offices connected through a vpn. Each office had
a server and a collection of PCs. A synchronizer handled branch-level
replication. The server at HQ handled server replication. Both processes
occurred every 5 minutes, so the longest it would take anyone anywhere to
see changes made elsewhere was 10 minutes. It never failed once in over 6
months of use.

I could be wrong about all the above. I found a scheme that worked
beautifully and stuck with it. There may be better solutions.

Arthur

-----Original Message-----
From: accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com
[mailto:accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com] On Behalf Of John Skolits
Sent: July 14, 2003 12:52 PM
To: Access Developers discussion and problem solving
Subject: RE: [AccessD] Replication - how can I tell if indirect occurring


I will have one replica here (my officer) and the other 2 on remote servers.
All servers connected to each other via VPN. Can't do direct because I've
read it's a bad idea to do that on WAN.

I think I'm slowly figuring it out except, I've read where:

"To prevent direct synchronization from occurring, make sure the replica is
not stored in a shared folder; "

I want to have the replicas on 3 servers all with synchronizers running with
indirect Synchs. Then use those replicas as backends to various frontend
applications. The FEs will be linked to the replica in their perspective
local server.

But, in order to link I have to share the database folders. The white paper
indicated, if I shared the folder, then a direct sync would occur (implied:
Even over a VPN).

So it looks like I can't have a FE/BE design on replicas that run with
indirect synching.

What do you think?

John