Real time replication over geographically divers sites

Hi,
Myself and a colleague have been charged with making two SQL servers
(SQL Server 2000 STD) replicate in real time, this is to allow a
helpdesk system to be updated in either the UK or South Africa.
Unfortunately as the helpdesk system we use is not by our own design
we have to use the same reference range.
Our fear is that a user would enter data in the UK taking the next
available reference at the same time as one in SA which would result
in clashing data!
Considering that the latency between these sites can be as high as
500ms what do you think would be our best solution?
Many thanks for any advice offered.
John...
What happens if the internet goes down?
You could run Merge replication every 5-10 minutes with no chance of data
clashes for tables that use identities.
Jim.
"John Norton" wrote:

> Hi,
> Myself and a colleague have been charged with making two SQL servers
> (SQL Server 2000 STD) replicate in real time, this is to allow a
> helpdesk system to be updated in either the UK or South Africa.
> Unfortunately as the helpdesk system we use is not by our own design
> we have to use the same reference range.
> Our fear is that a user would enter data in the UK taking the next
> available reference at the same time as one in SA which would result
> in clashing data!
> Considering that the latency between these sites can be as high as
> 500ms what do you think would be our best solution?
> Many thanks for any advice offered.
> John...
>
|||That depends on what the cost of latency is.
For something like this you should probably look at a citrix solution where
the UK and SA users both logon to the same database at the same time.
However, you can probably do this using replication if you relax the latency
requirements to a minute or more, and then use bi-directional transactional
replication, if and only if you can partition your data - possibly by using
dbcc checkident to create different ranges in the UK and SA.
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
"John Norton" <JNorton@.DPS-integro.co.uk> wrote in message
news:a2f128be.0503310645.16813d3d@.posting.google.c om...
> Hi,
> Myself and a colleague have been charged with making two SQL servers
> (SQL Server 2000 STD) replicate in real time, this is to allow a
> helpdesk system to be updated in either the UK or South Africa.
> Unfortunately as the helpdesk system we use is not by our own design
> we have to use the same reference range.
> Our fear is that a user would enter data in the UK taking the next
> available reference at the same time as one in SA which would result
> in clashing data!
> Considering that the latency between these sites can be as high as
> 500ms what do you think would be our best solution?
> Many thanks for any advice offered.
> John...