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Best practice to distribute replicas

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erick-flores

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Mar 12, 2009, 10:49:11 AM3/12/09
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As the tittle says, what is the best practice to distribute replicas?
Scenario: Have 10 laptops that need a replica.
1. Should I create a new replica from the Design Master for each
laptop (total of 10 replicas)?
2. Should I create 1 replica and copy it over to the 10 laptops? (I've
already read that copying replicas is not good, but just wanted to
double check)
3. ???

Thanks

Archidrb

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Mar 12, 2009, 4:08:38 PM3/12/09
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Erick,

I have been using a multi-teired system like this for over five years. I
have a DM in a network drive with a master replica. All users make a copy of
the master replica and synchronize to it.

Over the past year I have added a twist. Since converting to a SQL Server
backend and having a "local" version of the SQL Backend on my laptop for
development, I made a direct replica from the network DM to my laptop desktop.
I use the synchronization process to move the DM designation to my laptop,
run the linked table manager to change to my local SQL backend, and I can
work on my laptop in design without requiring an internet connection to VPN
to the office. Because I am the only DBA for my database, I usually leave
the DM designnation on my laptop.

The only draw-back is that when I synchronize changes, I have to do it twice,
to the netDM and the MR. This way both files are always up to date in case
my laptop explodes (or something).

I have never had problem with this set up except when someone (not me) goes
into the netDM and uses the databas eutilities to "grab" (steal) the DM
designation back. Then I have to delete my local DM and create a new one
from the network DM again.

I got the design model from an internet article. A couple of years after I
started using this plan I contacted the author of that article directly to
share my success and he disavowed knowledge of having ever written it.

Sometimes I get the feeling that a lot of programmers feel Access is the evit
step-child in the glorious Microsoft family, but I think its the most
versitile front end product available.

Archidrb

Archidrb

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Mar 12, 2009, 4:11:58 PM3/12/09
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Sorry, what I missed is that you have 10 laptops.

Will you be using a single backend (SQL or Access) and will users be in the
office or remote to the database, but connected to the network? If so, yes,
but an Access backend can be very slow.

If you are not using a single backend - and - the users will not be
connecting live to the system, my understanding is that the replica process
will not work and you would need to use a distributed ADP. But I haven't
played with that and I don't know much about them. Synchronizing non-linked
tables create conflict errors every time.

Archidrb

>>As the tittle says, what is the best practice to distribute replicas?
>>Scenario: Have 10 laptops that need a replica.

>[quoted text clipped - 6 lines]
>>
>>Thanks

David W. Fenton

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Mar 12, 2009, 6:06:29 PM3/12/09
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erick-flores <erickj...@gmail.com> wrote in
news:d5b225eb-7a7a-42d8...@v13g2000pro.googlegroups.co
m:

It depends.

If you want to carefully control the replication priority, you may
want to use code to create your replicas, particularly if each
replica is going to have a different priority.

If all your replicas are going to have the same priority, though,
you can just create one replica and copy it. What you *don't* want
to do is copy the DM, since you want the DM to have the highest
priority.

The issue with copying replicas is not operative here, as you are
initializing the replica on a new machine, and copying it to the new
machine is as easy a way as possible to make that happen. It's only
if you've already been editing a replica in a particular location
that you don't want to rename or move it. Since that's not the case
here, there's no problem with copying.

--
David W. Fenton http://www.dfenton.com/
usenet at dfenton dot com http://www.dfenton.com/DFA/

David W. Fenton

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Mar 12, 2009, 6:10:14 PM3/12/09
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"Archidrb" <u50333@uwe> wrote in news:92fc8865d6ad0@uwe:

> Over the past year I have added a twist. Since converting to a
> SQL Server backend

SQL Server replication and Jet replication work on completely
different models, so methods that work well for one are not
necessarily going to be transferable to the other.

> and having a "local" version of the SQL Backend on my laptop for
> development, I made a direct replica from the network DM to my
> laptop desktop. I use the synchronization process to move the DM
> designation to my laptop, run the linked table manager to change
> to my local SQL backend, and I can work on my laptop in design
> without requiring an internet connection to VPN to the office.
> Because I am the only DBA for my database, I usually leave the DM
> designnation on my laptop.

I would never recommend this for Jet replication. In any event, it
also doesn't answer any question that the origonal poster asked.

[]

> I got the design model from an internet article. A couple of
> years after I started using this plan I contacted the author of
> that article directly to share my success and he disavowed
> knowledge of having ever written it.

If you're doing this with an MDB, then you've got major problems in
your replica set. If you're doing it with SQL Server, it doesn't
have anything at all to do with Access.

> Sometimes I get the feeling that a lot of programmers feel Access
> is the evit step-child in the glorious Microsoft family, but I
> think its the most versitile front end product available.

I'm very confused as to what this comment has to do with the process
you described, which seems to me to have zilch to do with Access.

David W. Fenton

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Mar 12, 2009, 6:13:11 PM3/12/09
to
"Archidrb" <u50333@uwe> wrote in news:92fc9021eae48@uwe:

> Sorry, what I missed is that you have 10 laptops.

Rather a major point to miss?

And you also seem to have missed that he's not using SQL Server as
his back end.

> Will you be using a single backend (SQL or Access) and will users
> be in the office or remote to the database, but connected to the
> network? If so, yes, but an Access backend can be very slow.

Please stop posting in this newsgroup-- your ignorance of all things
regarding Jet replication is overwhelming, and polluting the Google
archives of this group with completely erroneous (and dangerous)
information.

> If you are not using a single backend - and - the users will not
> be connecting live to the system, my understanding is that the
> replica process will not work and you would need to use a
> distributed ADP.

No, this is COMPLETELY AND TOTALLY WRONG.

> But I haven't
> played with that and I don't know much about them.

You obviously don't know anything worth saying about Jet
replication.

> Synchronizing non-linked
> tables create conflict errors every time.

THIS IS COMPLETELY FALSE.

You obviously don't know a damned thing about Jet replication and
really ought to stop posting.

The situation described by the original poster is, in fact, IDEAL
for Jet replication.

erick-flores

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Mar 13, 2009, 10:55:04 AM3/13/09
to
On Mar 12, 5:06 pm, "David W. Fenton" <XXXuse...@dfenton.com.invalid>
wrote:
> erick-flores <erickjflo...@gmail.com> wrote innews:d5b225eb-7a7a-42d8...@v13g2000pro.googlegroups.co

> m:
>
> > As the tittle says, what is the best practice to distribute
> > replicas? Scenario: Have 10 laptops that need a replica.
> > 1. Should I create a new replica from the Design Master for each
> > laptop (total of 10 replicas)?
> > 2. Should I create 1 replica and copy it over to the 10 laptops?
> > (I've already read that copying replicas is not good, but just
> > wanted to double check)
>
> It depends.
>
> If you want to carefully control the replication priority, you may
> want to use code to create your replicas, particularly if each
> replica is going to have a different priority.
>
> If all your replicas are going to have the same priority, though,
> you can just create one replica and copy it. What you *don't* want
> to do is copy the DM, since you want the DM to have the highest
> priority.

And this is the case for me. Same replica (same priority) for all the
laptops.

Thanks again :)

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