Thanks to all for the information and debate. I plan to start working with it in a testing environment shortly. Fortunately, this would not really get implemented for roughly five months. My concern at this point was really if I should be spending time investigating and purchasing Replistor. From the discussion here (including Travis's warning), I am inclined to throw the proverbial hat in with DFSR.
I am sure that EMC will have a marketing juggernaught aimed at explaining why DFSR is junk and Replistor turns water into wine. From the talk here, DFSR will make these other products fairly superfluous, no? Thanks again. -- nme -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, November 08, 2005 7:47 AM To: ActiveDir@mail.activedir.org Subject: RE: [ActiveDir] OT: Legato Replistor >>>Give it at least six months for the initial problems to ironed out first...remember the pain of early Windows 2000 DFS? If there ever is a great argument FOR using DFSR "now", this is it! Rather than waiting for an arbitrary length of "cooling off" period, you ought to get in there now and test it out and see what works and what does not work for you - you have a better chance of effecting changes to the final product at this point, and you get the benefit of actually knowing and understanding the product better than you otherwise would. Moreso, it gives you a true understanding of its capabilities well before the Marketing spiel hits the airwaves and tart clouding your judgment. If you use it now, you will get the technical angle, and you will be less susceptible to some attractive jargons coined up by people like me whose very existence will depend on getting you to implement - I will have all the ammo then and you will have nothing but a whimpering "I just want to wait a while ....." :). You noticed how Guido shredded my "Quantum Leap" theory, didn't you? That's what I mean. Sincerely, Dèjì Akómöláfé, MCSE+M MCSA+M MCT Microsoft MVP - Directory Services www.readymaids.com - we know IT www.akomolafe.com Do you now realize that Today is the Tomorrow you were worried about Yesterday? -anon ________________________________ From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] on behalf of Jensz, Travis Sent: Tue 11/8/2005 3:00 AM To: 'ActiveDir@mail.activedir.org' Subject: RE: [ActiveDir] OT: Legato Replistor We've recently used RepliStor for our 2000 to 2003 migration, and now we're using it to maintain a hot spare at some of our larger sites. Generally speaking it's pretty good, and when everything's running well it transmits data surprisingly quick - I haven't bothered yet trying to prove whether or not it actually does replicate data on something more granular than a per file basis, but it's pretty quick. The main problem we had with it came down to a conflict with the AV software on the target machine. Since we're only replicating one-way (and RepliStor is locking the target data for us) we simply disabled AV on the target and we'll just enable it again if we ever lose the live server. However, it sounds like you plan to replicate data around in a multi-master scenario, so disabling AV isn't really an option... not sure how you'd get around it... maybe their support guys will be able to help you out. Also, all of our replication so far has been over LAN connections, so our experience with the software has very much been a best case scenario. We'll be tackling WAN replication some time soon. I'm sure the following applies to most data replication software, not just RepliStor, but here are a few things which caused us pain: - antivirus!! - switches with QoS enabled - files which had the offline attribute set - buffer area filling up As for DFSR, I wouldn't dream of using it the day it hits the shelf. Give it at least six months for the initial problems to ironed out first... remember the pain of early Windows 2000 DFS? Travis -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Grillenmeier, Guido Sent: 07 November 2005 21:33 To: ActiveDir@mail.activedir.org Subject: RE: [ActiveDir] OT: Legato Replistor I've been doing various tests myself and while I wouldn't say a DFSR is a quantum leap from Double-Take, I'd certainly agree that it is when compared to FRS. Maybe even two leaps... Certainly something that I consider one of the main benefits of R2. But besides all the talk on the file replication improvements, you should also not loose focus on the various benefits of the updated core DFS itself. Here are my favorite changes of DFS/DFSR (other than dramatically improving repl. performance and efficiency): · new object type "Folders" to create Link-Hierarchy within the same DFS root · powerful options to configure Target priority (handling of link target referrals) outside of client's site (links within client's site will always be listed first in referral list) ? Random Order ? Lowest Cost ? Exclude Targets outside client's site ? special Failback option: Client's can be configured to fail back to preferred target (requires special hotfix - only available for XP SP2) ? availability of options depend on special OS and AD additions (e.g. although mixing OS versions is possible, if domain controllers or root servers are running Windows Server 2003 without the release candidate version of SP1, they cannot provide referrals that support target priority or client failback) · Replication possible with standalone DFS root (not only domain based), but clients must be member of an AD domain · Replication allows to specify bandwidth to be used · differentiates between Replication Group and Content Set ? Replication Group: * set of servers/members that participate in replication of content sets ? Content Set: * folder that's kept syncronized on each member * does not need to be a shared folder (can be normal local folder on a member server - good for collection Logs etc.) * does not need to be part of a DFS namespace /Guido -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Sonntag, 6. November 2005 09:39 To: ActiveDir@mail.activedir.org Subject: RE: [ActiveDir] OT: Legato Replistor It will actually transmit something like 10K - because of the tight compression. Or, to put it another way - in the 25Mb file scenario, the new file will get to the other side using DFRS on 2 sites connected by dialup before it gets to the other side using FRS on 2 sites connected by T1. There are various "this-can't-be-true" unbelievable replication magics going on here. I used to use Double-Take (from NSI) and used to think they were doing black magic because of their compression and diff replication. DFSR appears to be a quantum leap from that. I just had the pleasure of running through some test this week, following a 35meg .wmv file I downloaded from the DFSR Beta site. It's trully eye-popping. Let him join the beta - or download it and play with it. I don't think describing it will do justice to its capabilities. Sincerely, Dèjì Akómöláfé, MCSE+M MCSA+M MCT Microsoft MVP - Directory Services www.readymaids.com - we know IT www.akomolafe.com Do you now realize that Today is the Tomorrow you were worried about Yesterday? -anon ________________________________ From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] on behalf of Brian Desmond Sent: Sun 11/6/2005 12:06 AM To: ActiveDir@mail.activedir.org Subject: RE: [ActiveDir] OT: Legato Replistor Noah- It's actually like RC1 escrow build or something - practically not in beta. I think you can download from download.microsoft.com. I was in a presentation about this with a bunch of other people in this list. I really hope one of them remembers better how it works, because I don't well enough to explain it. The general opinion I think is holy cow this is pretty awesome. Here's an example I remember. Let's say you have a replicated directory with some big files, a 25MB word doc is one of them. Jane User opens up the word doc, adds a couple sentences, and saves it with a new name. With FRS, the new doc will get replicated in full - 25MB over a slow congested link, potentially. With DFSR, it maintains a database of hashes of the bits of all the stuff in a replica and has this recursive algorithm where it will figure out that only the 100K in this file are different from the original word doc, and it will transmit the 100K and then assemble the file with the bits in the old doc. Thanks, Brian Desmond [EMAIL PROTECTED] <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> c - 312.731.3132 ________________________________ From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Noah Eiger Sent: Sunday, November 06, 2005 1:35 AM To: ActiveDir@mail.activedir.org Subject: RE: [ActiveDir] OT: Legato Replistor Thanks for the thought, Brian. After your suggestion, I tried to do some research on DFSR. Beyond the MSDN schematics and an article that seems to get "reprinted" on several sites, I can't really find anything about how well this works. I realize that it is in beta right now but have you seen anything about how well it works, limitations, etc.? Thanks. -- nme ________________________________ From: Brian Desmond [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, November 04, 2005 4:35 PM To: ActiveDir@mail.activedir.org Subject: RE: [ActiveDir] OT: Legato Replistor I think you should wait a month or two for R2 to come out. It has DFSR which will do this, and probably better than Replistor or the other products. Don't both comparing FRS to DFSR ... it's totally different. Thanks, Brian Desmond [EMAIL PROTECTED] <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> c - 312.731.3132 ________________________________ From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Noah Eiger Sent: Friday, November 04, 2005 6:34 PM To: ActiveDir@mail.activedir.org Subject: [ActiveDir] OT: Legato Replistor Hello: I am seeking opinions on Legato's Replistor product. Specifically, we are looking to replicate file-based data with large files over a WAN (256kbps to 1.5Mbps). The total size of the replicated data could vary from zero to tens of gigs with an individual file being as large as tens of megs. We would like to let Replistor (rather than FRS) handle the replication for DFS. My understanding from Legato folks is that this does a bit-to-bit compare and only moves the modified bits. This would be very useful to us for moving large files where only a small portion of it has changed. I am contrasting this with FRS which would file-to-file compare and then replace the entire file regardless of what changed. Am I correct in my understanding of the product? Are there other products that I should be considering for this task? Have folks on the List had good or bad experience with this product? Will this integrate with DFS the way I think it will? Thanks in advance. -- nme List info : http://www.activedir.org/List.aspx List FAQ : http://www.activedir.org/ListFAQ.aspx List archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/activedir%40mail.activedir.org/ b?!? 0i_bb?)?Pi_0 [EMAIL PROTECTED])??+?iv0Df?+r?ib?b?&j)Zr?y?? This message has been scanned for viruses by MailControl - (see http://bluepages.wsatkins.co.uk/?4318150) This email and any attached files are confidential and copyright protected. 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