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build18erFlag for United States of America

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Replication between internal and external servers

I am working on re-doing my windows domain setup.

I just got a new server in a remote data center running windows server 2003.

I also have a server in my office.

I would like to have the data replicate between the 2 servers.  Then if you are in the office you access the files from the local server.  otherwise i would like to make it so that if you are on ftp or vpn, you access the data from the server in the data center.

I don't know how to get this setup...or what software i need.  

Thanks for your help.
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wmeerza
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Have you any experience with networking or windows server or file replication? To do this would take more than a few links to "how to" pages.
If you are not experienced it would pay to get a profesional consultant involved to assist you.
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ASKER

i have experience with the first 2, but not too much with the third.
would dfs help
Avatar of Lee W, MVP
Honestly, I'm working on experimenting with this myself.  I'm a little confused... if you are a beginner, why are you trying to do all this yourself?  I'm not saying there isn't a business reason for it... but why take the chance to do it WRONG and cost you thousands later when a few hundred to a couple thousand now should be enough to get a qualified consultant to set you up.
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johnny_the_knife

Are both the servers in the same active directory domain?  If so, I would use distributed file system (DFS) to implement a solution.  In an environment where the servers are not in the same domain will you need to establish some type of network connectivity between them then use something like ViceVersa to handle the file replication.

File replication over WAN links tends to be problematic (replication conflicts, limited bandwidth etc), so I would seriously look at the design of this network and whether there is a better solution which results in all the files being in one place.
this is not for anything big...very small...and no budget.
they are on the same domain...the 2 in the other question...
well, they would be syncing over wan

i mean there wouldn't be that much data....like i said, very small

so i will experiment with dfs...I am reading some articles on in now.
your basic needs are to have both sites setup as DC's with integrated DNS and DHCP and global catalog. This will replicate AD for you. Make sure your clients also point to the DNS at their site for the preferred DNS and the other sites DC for secondary DNS which will give you redundancy in authentication if one site goes down.
If you set them up in sites and services you will be able to manage who log on to what site.
What sort of file replication are you after? The bandwidth available will need to be taken into consideration. DFS can be used to replicate or you can setup robocopy scripts.
well, i would like to make sure that all documents are always available.

Pictures, music and video are in seperate shares than the redirected my docs, app data, and desktop.

I have only 1 meg up, but 16 down.

i would like to sync them too, but they are a lower priority (like once per day rather than continuous)
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johnny_the_knife

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