File Replecation Software

[Alwayslearining]

My boss has asked me to find File replication software that is FREE or something much cheaper than veritas storage replicator. he wants to replicate the data files from server1 to server2 for a disaster recovery plan. both servers are located in the same room. i have found data replicator, IDEM and file replication pro. Have any of you used this software or using similiar software that you would recommend?.

both servers are nt4 servers.

[EvilCabbage]

Umm..

copy c:\blah\. z:\blah\.

pause 500

goto start

?

But in all seriousness, you get what you pay for, and you get support when you buy a product, and something that might be scalable to a larger operation also.

What sort of data do you want to replicate? Is it just going to be copied, or do both copies need to remain 'live'?.. please give more details.

[Alwayslearining]

well they need to both stay live. its mainly msoffice documents but there are also caseware documents.

[EvilCabbage]

Um.. dunno what caseware is, but I will assume its just a document type thingo.

If it was me, I would:

Assess how often the documents should be updated.

Assess the speed of the hard drives and network to see how much data could be copied at a decent speed.

Then, I would probably look into writing a batch file to do the job (dodgy way) or possibly use it as a bit of a project case, to teach myself VB, (or in my case, Delphi) I might actually use this situation to learn something.

So yeah, I would either fork out the money, after seeing exactly what you need, or take on the task of creating something to do the job myself.

Good luck fella.

[RejectionMan]

if im not mistaken NT has built in file replication....

automatiacly update the chagnes every 15 min (or waht ever you set it to), or dose nothing if it did not change.

[silencio]

I've always been warry of businesses who want free services. Sometimes you get what you pay for (like EvilCabbage said).

The cheapest way would be to run a differential backup every 15 minutes on the drives in question.

[geeksRus]

here is a simple freebie...the author writes pretty good code

<a href="http://www.karenware.com/powertools/ptreplicator.asp" target="_blank">Replicator</a>

hope this is sorta what you are lookin for

[Alwayslearining]

Thanks You all for the replies. Iam going to have another talk to my boss and most probably suggest the defferiantal backup thanks iateyourcat. The speed of the network wouldnt really be a problem because its all 100mb running on cisco switches. batch files would be a problem because my boss doesnt like running things on the server. (this is most probably a pointless exercise that his going to give me again next year)