"Daven Thrice" <da*********@NOyahooSPAM.com> wrote in
news:Ekryd.148$Q%4.145@fed1read06:
I have a database that needs to be replicated over the Internet. I
was hoping it would be a simple task, but apparently it is not.
I've started browsing the msdn article on the topic. In the
meantime, I am wondering who might be able to host a server on the
Internet that meets such requirements. If anybody has had any
experience with this, and/or if you can recommend a host who meets
said requirements, I'd appreciate it if you'd post.
Don't pay any attention to the Microsoft documentation on Jet
replication, as it mostly reflects the dreams of marketing rather
than actual experience with replication over the long haul. Some of
the original documentation was *very* bad, recommending techniques
that were extremely dangerous, but some of that has been corrected
over the years (though not all of it).
Internet replication requires that the synchronizer process be
running on an NT box running IIS and FTP services. So far as I know,
no commercial ISP offers this service because the support costs
would be astronomical (especially given that the synchronizer cannot
run as a service, so that the service would always have to be logged
on as a user and locked).
Secondly, since Internet replication is so dependent on proper
configuration of IIS and FTP and permissions and networking on both
ends, it breaks any time a butterfly sneezes in Tahiti (according to
reports I've read in microsoft.public.access.replication -- I've
never contemplated using it myself, because of the dependence on
IIS, which I will never force any client to install as it's so
incredibly insecure and unreliable).
You have a couple of alternatives:
1. if you can set up a VPN across a WAN, you should have not
difficulty setting up plain old indirect replication. Indirect
replication works with normal Windows networking, and the connection
would have to remain open for the synchronizer to do its job (or
you'd have to programmatically open the connection before
synchronizing). I've never done this, but I don't see why it
shouldn't work. The key point is that replication depends on a
networked connection.
2. abandon replication entirely, and host the application for remote
users on a Windows Terminal Server. This is the direction I've gone
in with all my clients who need to support remote users. It's far,
far easier to set up and administer and not nearly as fragile as any
form of Jet replication.
--
David W. Fenton
http://www.bway.net/~dfenton
dfenton at bway dot net
http://www.bway.net/~dfassoc