Bridge all site links?

[chadb]

Im a little confused when to use this setting. Im under
the impression that when I have a hub and spoke network,
I should not bridge all site links as it can cause
replication problems with sites that are not actually
linked physically. When my network is fully routed, is
it best to keep Bridge all sites links checked?

thanks in advance...

 

[Mike Aubert]

It depends (doesn't it always). There are basically two rules:

- If your network is not fully routed you want to uncheck the Bridge all
site links option.

- If you have a large number of sites (over about 200) disabling the Bridge
all site links option may be required. The problem in a forest with a large
number of sites is that the time it takes the Inter-site Topology Generator
(ISTG) to create the replication topology is so long that it can't complete
the calculation before it has to start calculating it again for the next
cycle. (The ISTG used by Windows server 2003 is much more scalable.)

However, if you don't have very many sites don't bother disabling the Bridge
all site links option - in a smaller environment it's not worth the trouble
if you need to setup site link bridges. It basically comes down to how many
sites you have.

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