Merge Replication - or whatever is the best idea!!!

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Hi all,

We seem to be coming up with the following problem quite often (in recent
tenders) and I was wondering what others would recommend as the best way to
resolve it – either SQL related or other. I hope I can illustrate it clearly.

Scenario:
------------
1 Publisher

200+ Subscribers

Wide Geographic footprint (sites may not even have cell phone comms and may
be on land lines @ 9600bps)

Small volumes (that will conflict) of processing transactions that need to
be replicated (status / simple workflow related type of stuff)

Data manipulated through a custom .NET application at both publisher and
subscriber

Suggestion:
---------------
Utilize merge replication to manage the data and keep it all in sync.

Problems:
--------------
Some remote sites have very unreliable connections:

Problem 1 (Small problem): A remote site is unavailable for say 4 weeks at a
time (may be manageable through replication)

Problem 2 (Big problem): A remote site may be unavailable for such a period
of time that the data on the remote site must be incorporated at the
publisher in some alternate manner (log shipping / data transfer / custom
solution / other ideas?)

Architecting from scratch, what would you say is the best method to share
data in such an environment? The main concern being around synchronizing data
on sites where the connection has been lost and some manual process needs to
be in place to move the data to a connected environment (Maybe 500km away)
and then bring a synchronized set of data back to the subscriber site to
“refresh” the data.

Additionally, does SQL 2005 offer anything new that may be “right for the
job”?

Thanks in advance


.

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