As teams become increasingly dispersed and mobile, you must ensure every team member can efficiently access up-to-date, centralized information and share updated documents, even over slow or intermittent Internet connections.
A technology known as geo-replication, which includes -to-server replication and two-way replication, can help ensure timely delivery of the data necessary for all "spokes of the wheel" to accurately complete their tasks, whether team members are in remote offices or in the remotest parts of the world.
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To support enterprise replication in complex global organizations, the technology should meet the following requirements:
• Performance: Reduce response times to response times you'd expect from a .
• Cost reduction: Minimize WAN traffic with advanced compression technology and enable Web and file content to be replicated during off peak hours.
• Transparency: To avoid costly retraining of end users, or redevelopment of existing applications, all solutions must provide the same interface to the remote or mobile user.
• Compatibility: Support all file types, commonly used Web technologies and network and infrastructures.
• : Integrate replication support with the existing security infrastructure, and extend to support remote and offline users.
• Scalability: A scalable architecture that can manage tens of thousands of users and terabytes of replicated content.
• Network availability: A platform that is able to provide access within networks that have potential for disconnection.
You're only as strong as your weakest link, and in distributed organizations that means even your most needs proper access to data and information. Without a minimum level of quality and reliability, companies can expect to face delays or even process failures when it comes to getting work done.
For context, many organizations typically support distributed teams by linking islands of data together over a wide area network (WAN) to ensure corporate information is consistent. Portal technologies such as help the process of aggregating information, however, these technologies only bring information together at local or regional hubs.
True corporate-wide consistency and collaboration can only be achieved when you take this process a step further and aggregate information across the enterprise. What's more, organizations should take into account that geographically distributed locations and mobile personnel may also suffer from occasional disconnection, variable bandwidth, prohibitive costs for technical investments or high-latency issues.
Geo-replication, as well as Offline SharePoint, address both of these issues and allow knowledge workers to have 24/7 access to information that will automatically sync when they re-connect to the server.
Server-to-server replication is specifically designed to capture and distribute the content of central sites to multiple remote locations. As the remote workforce grows and becomes more mobile, however, people in the field not only need to access up-to-date information, they also need to be able to update documents and have those changes relayed back to the central site.
Geo-replication technologies can function in two-way mode to address that exact challenge in a highly efficient manner. It does so by only updating the specific altered data, rather than replacing entire documents, thereby limiting the amount of data transferred at any one time.
SharePoint is widely used among organizations as a central portal for organizing files, including Microsoft Office documents, announcements and contacts, into lists and document libraries. The ability to replicate the SharePoint content that workers are already creating and sharing onto local servers reduces redundant document versions by only updating the altered data, and dramatically reduces data transmission costs incurred by each remote location. By accelerating the availability of portal content, distributed teams can complete their work more accurately and within online environments with which they are already familiar.
Just as important as the ability to access data and have it updated on the central server is the ability for workers to retrieve SharePoint content and Web apps to be able to work offline in times of limited bandwidth. To this end, geo-replication technologies can also provide an offline version of SharePoint allowing remote workers to maximize their time by completing tasks within a known ecosystem that will update appropriately when connectivity is restored.
Complete and accurate enterprise views of available data and content are necessary for businesses to run effectively. The demand for real, attainable, company-wide consistency has fostered the development and ongoing evolution of geo-replication technologies. These technologies are creating multiple ways for collaboration to still take place, and accelerate business, in the face of a remote and flexible workforce.
Infonic is a software company that creates unique SharePoint replication software for a range of blue chip clients including the U.S. Navy and U.S. Marine Corps (SharePoint replication).
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