Data Mirroring

ron_darrell

Hi guys,

This is my first post and I'm not sure if I'm even posting it in the right section. If I'm not please tell me and I'll move the thread. I'm looking for someone to give me a few pointers on data mirroring software; where to get it; what products are best; any problems I am likely to run into etc.

Thanks in advance for any help and apologies again if I have posted to the wrong section

-RD

aidan_walsh

Whats your setup?

ron_darrell

Very basic. I have 2 networks; a local network where some data is being generated and a WAN webserver where the majority of the data is being generated and hosted.

Unfortunately the local data is essential to the site and is generated at 2 distinct times in the course of the day. At the moment I am FTPing the data from local to the webserver but as the webserver data is also updating during the day I also need to download the data. A total pain in the b**t.

What I would hope would be possible would be to mirror the folder where the local data gets created to a folder on the webserver and so there would be no further need to FTP and the 2 datasources keep up to date and synchronised.

I have a fixed IP on both the webserver and the LAN so my questions are:

Can it be done?
If so is it expensive?
What's the best product to go with?
What kind of problems am I liable to run into?

Thanks for your help.

-RD

Capt'n Midnight

you said wan so I am assuming fixed price, always up links

if you are a windows 2000/XP/2003 user then have a look at robocopy it's in the windows server 2003 resource kit (free)

you can choose to remove files from destination if they are missing from source - that's the mirror option, I prefer not to do this - it's better to be looking at it than looking for it.

you can also set up replication interval or schedual it to run in the evening

you can set up inter packet gaps so it doesn't hog the network


rsync is something to look at if you aren't using windows

Ginger

If its just DB data look at replication from the DB side of things.. if its other data then follow what the lads have said

ron_darrell

Thanks for the suggestions guys. I'm having a look at robocopy now, I think it will probably suit my needs.

The database is in Access at the moment (the site is a prototype for a larger project and so the database structure has been given my lowest priority at the moment, but will become much more important in the re-design phase), so while I probably could look at the replication I'll leave it for now.

The majority of the data is in a database but there are various image files (.tiff format) that are also involved.

Thanks again for all the help. I'll leave the thread open for a few more days just in case there are anymore good ideas about.

-RD

amen

not really anything to do with Data mirroring but get rid of Access

If you want a more enterprise database solution you could have a look at Database replication.

you should also be thinking about log shipping for a more robust disaster recovery



how/where are the images stored?
have you thought about truning them into blobs, compressing and storing in a database?

cousin_borat

Agree with above. Robocopy is a very handy tool for doing data mirroring "on the cheap". Just be careful with the options you give the command. IE that you replicate in one direction only since you can overwrite your good "production" data with your archived copy if you have two way replication with Robocopy.

ron_darrell

The images are image archives of documents created by the process. I will be coming back to the database design once I have sorted what bugs I have in the prototype and accounts have passed my estimate for costs of a full rollout. At that stage I will be getting rid of Access (yeah !! ) and will look to see if I can come up with a more robust system for uploading the images.

To be honest I had though to have 2-way replication going on to keep both copies up to date and to allow the local users to use the local copies if the internet connection ever failed. However I do see your point about keep a 'virgin' copy. Perhaps a scheduled routine that backs up the copy to a backup location?

Anyways thanks for all the suggestions.

-RD