Is Replication Too Much

We are developing a system for a manufacturing operation. The planned
approach is to develop stand alone data capture applications using MSDE for
the database. The production data from these systems needs to be posted to a
central SQL database. All systems will be in the same building. We plan to
roll out this system to a number of facilities. The number of data capture
systems could range from 5 to 25. Data Transfer requirements include: 1)
Master data from the central system will need to be sent to the data capture
machines (updated 4 times a day). 2) Production order informtation will be
sent to 1 or more data capture machines (updated as orders are scheduled to
production lines). 3) Production data from the data capture machines will
need to be sent in a timely manner because 4) Summary Production data (totals
by production order and material) is needed by the data capture machines to
prevent overruns.
The current application we have uses a separate VB application to update the
stand alone and central database. Users are given a message when the central
database cannot be accesssed, however, the stand alone machines must continue
working.
Would replication be a good design for this scenario? or is it overkill? I
have heard the replication is a resource hog, we will have only the central
server to work with.
Other information:
Production data on the stand alones need only be kept for a few days, after
that it can be purged.
Production records (single table) can be created every 6 seconds, updates to
central database can be queued.
Master data consist of 6 tables that are used for look up purposes by the
application running on the stand alone systems.
There are 2 production tables (Header and detail). Application displays
summary production (for detail record) by current system and across all
systems.
Thanks in advance for you help
Who told you replication is a resource hog? Running on property sized
hardware and with a well designed topology (minimal use of filters, etc),
the performance impact should range around 10% or less. If you are running
this on Pentium III hardware naturally performance will not be optimal.
Running it on Pentium IV 2 GHz or more (or some of the modern AMD
processors) with ample RAM (2 Gigs or more) you should be fine.
I think you should use merge replication for this. You can't use
transactional as MSDE can't be a transactional publisher.
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
"Ken Ptaszynski" <Ken Ptaszynski@.discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:FA9B3270-7928-4C1C-9446-3FB489B2015A@.microsoft.com...
> We are developing a system for a manufacturing operation. The planned
> approach is to develop stand alone data capture applications using MSDE
for
> the database. The production data from these systems needs to be posted to
a
> central SQL database. All systems will be in the same building. We plan
to
> roll out this system to a number of facilities. The number of data
capture
> systems could range from 5 to 25. Data Transfer requirements include: 1)
> Master data from the central system will need to be sent to the data
capture
> machines (updated 4 times a day). 2) Production order informtation will
be
> sent to 1 or more data capture machines (updated as orders are scheduled
to
> production lines). 3) Production data from the data capture machines
will
> need to be sent in a timely manner because 4) Summary Production data
(totals
> by production order and material) is needed by the data capture machines
to
> prevent overruns.
> The current application we have uses a separate VB application to update
the
> stand alone and central database. Users are given a message when the
central
> database cannot be accesssed, however, the stand alone machines must
continue
> working.
> Would replication be a good design for this scenario? or is it overkill?
I
> have heard the replication is a resource hog, we will have only the
central
> server to work with.
> Other information:
> Production data on the stand alones need only be kept for a few days,
after
> that it can be purged.
> Production records (single table) can be created every 6 seconds, updates
to
> central database can be queued.
> Master data consist of 6 tables that are used for look up purposes by the
> application running on the stand alone systems.
> There are 2 production tables (Header and detail). Application displays
> summary production (for detail record) by current system and across all
> systems.
> Thanks in advance for you help