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Replicating data on a secondary DC

I have a customer that is moving into a new branch office. There will be less than ten users, all management, mostly using wireless and connecting to the main office SBS 2008 server using VPN. The owner of the company will be at the new office and "wants" his data with him. I really prefer to leave everything on the main server since it is the nerve center of the company but to accommodate him is it possible to replicate all or specific data like Exchange on the secondary DC I will install? The data link at the main office where SBS 08 server is located is DSL and the new office will have a T1 or Business Class cable. I will most likely be using Windows 2008 Standard x64 on the secondary DC.

kevala

I'm not sure if this would put the owner's mind at ease, but you could put his Outlook client into cached mode and let the data get downloaded to a local .OST file (if it's not already). That will not only make the performance for him/her better, but you s/he will actually have a local copy of the mailbox, and a copy on the server for backups.

There isn't another way to replicate Exchange data to the secondary DC unless you actually install Exchange with some kind of clustering option, which you won't have with SBS i don't believe.

I would go with the cached mode option, see if s/he buys into the local OST copy and the copy on the server idea. The secondary DC isn't a bad idea anyway, just make it a GC as well.

Shane07

ASKER

Hi Kevala,
I am not sure the owner of the company would be at ease unless he knew his data was in the next room on a server so I am trying to find some way to make what data I can available to him if the data links were ever to go down. I will have to check and see how Outlook was setup. I think it is already in cached mode with a copy locally and on the server. My next step is to find a solution to replicating the file system for his immediate access to important documents. Any suggestions?

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kevala

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Shane07

ASKER

DFS would work but I am not sure how reliable it would be from the main office. Their data link is not very reliable.

Peter Van den Broeck

You need third party software to do this.
CA XOsoft is designed to do this.

Check out this site: http://www.ca.com/us/products/product.aspx?id=8232