Best way to replicate Laptop users

Hi,
I have a central server witch fetches information from other local
servers. I setup merge replications so that all changes made at local
server would be replicated at central server in the night.
Now, I want all the information on central server (that is, the
combined information from all the local servers) to be dumped on the
laptop users so that they can work offline. Because of the amount of
the data I have to transfer, I can't no longer just delete all the
objects and copy over all tables any more (takes way too long.)
However, I can not setup another merge replication because the central
server is already setuped in the local to central merge replication.
The only way I could think of is to setup merge replication from local
servers to the laptop user and probably setup a job to setup the first
snapshot dump (takes around 45 minutes) in the middle of the night so
that it won't affect local server during business hour.
I am just wondering if there are better ways to do this?
Conditions:
1 - I prefer not to touch the local servers since they are vital to our
operation during regular hours (9am ~ 9pm, 7 days / week).
2 - I prefer to replication with the central server for it is a faster
server and it is not linked to any real-time operation machines (except
that it replicates with the other local servers in the middle of the
night)
3 - Snapshot replication or DTS is out of the question for the sales
table contains 2 million+ rows and growing
Any good suggestions?
Thank you in advance
Charlie Chang
[charlies224@.hotmail.com]
This might be a good case for using dynamic snapshots so the laptop users
get only the data they require. You will need a column on the tables you are
replicating to partition your data with.
I would use WSM (Windows Synchronization Manager) to manage the pull.
Depending on your data flow you might be able to publish from the local
servers.
Hilary Cotter
Looking for a SQL Server replication book?
http://www.nwsu.com/0974973602.html
Looking for a FAQ on Indexing Services/SQL FTS
http://www.indexserverfaq.com
<charlies224@.hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:1109629058.527708.180340@.l41g2000cwc.googlegr oups.com...
> Hi,
> I have a central server witch fetches information from other local
> servers. I setup merge replications so that all changes made at local
> server would be replicated at central server in the night.
> Now, I want all the information on central server (that is, the
> combined information from all the local servers) to be dumped on the
> laptop users so that they can work offline. Because of the amount of
> the data I have to transfer, I can't no longer just delete all the
> objects and copy over all tables any more (takes way too long.)
> However, I can not setup another merge replication because the central
> server is already setuped in the local to central merge replication.
> The only way I could think of is to setup merge replication from local
> servers to the laptop user and probably setup a job to setup the first
> snapshot dump (takes around 45 minutes) in the middle of the night so
> that it won't affect local server during business hour.
> I am just wondering if there are better ways to do this?
> Conditions:
> 1 - I prefer not to touch the local servers since they are vital to our
> operation during regular hours (9am ~ 9pm, 7 days / week).
> 2 - I prefer to replication with the central server for it is a faster
> server and it is not linked to any real-time operation machines (except
> that it replicates with the other local servers in the middle of the
> night)
> 3 - Snapshot replication or DTS is out of the question for the sales
> table contains 2 million+ rows and growing
>
> Any good suggestions?
> Thank you in advance
> Charlie Chang
> [charlies224@.hotmail.com]
>