Synchronizing data?

[Guy Dillen]

I'm developing a CF application that makes use of SQL Server CE 2.0.
At certain moments i need to send subsets of the data (in the SQL Server CE
2.0) to a server (by means of a WebService).
At the same time data needs to be send from the server (also by using a
WebService) to the Pocket PC device. The communication is GPRS/GSM.
The database on the server is SQL Server 2000 (but can change in the future
to Oracle or ...).

What is the best way to do send/receive the data (transfering DataSets??,
....) ?

Guy

 

[Ali Mazaheri [MCAD]]

Why don't you use Sqlcereplication ?

 

[Guy Dillen]

1. Does SqlCeReplication works with e.g. Oracle?
2. I'm using an ISP as provider for my WebServices; i suppose he has to
install a supplementary agent?

Guy

 

[Chris Forsberg [MVP]]

It depends on how much data you are transferring as DataSets (XML) creates
overhead that can be a real problem on lower bandwidth (such as GSM). But if
the amount of data is not ver high, it's quite simple to transfer the data
to the server with a Web Service that takes a DataSet type as a parameter.
To return data in the same call, the Web Service could have a DataSet return
type as well.

If you have larger amounts of data, SQL Server CE RDA (Remote Data Access)
is probably a better solution as it is more effective. However, then you
need to have control of the server (virtual directory in IIS with server
agent installed) and if you plan on using Oracle at a later time, you need
to build server-side replication between SQL Server 2000 and Oracle.

In any case, you should be aware that if you are communicating with a SQL
Server 2000 on the server, you need a CAL (Client Access License) for each
device (even if you are using only Web Services).

 

[Ali Mazaheri [MCAD]]

No it does not support Oracle, and yes on IIS you should install SQLCE
agent.

 

[Lloyd Dupont]

but Oracle doesn't work on PPC either ...

1. Does SqlCeReplication works with e.g. Oracle?
2. I'm using an ISP as provider for my WebServices; i suppose he has to
install a supplementary agent?

Guy

 

[Guy Dillen]

Probably not, but i use SqlServer CE 2.0 on my PPC.
And as backend database i now use SQL Server, but this can be any database
in the future (Oracle, ...)

 

[Enrico Pavesi]

You create a program that get changed records on the server (use trigger or
delta modification) and transfer it to ppc, or you need to use some third
party programs (i used Synchrologic).
They are not free but offers a lot of functionalities on data and documents
replications and device management.

Enrico

 

[rdebault]

I am doing the exact thing you want to do by using Pick
Formated records. The XML format worked well but the
overhead was to great so i switched to this format. I
have webservices that do incremental updates based on the
last date the user updated their data.

 

[Robert Morrow]

You may want to check out XcelleNet at
http://www.xcellenet.com/Afaria-SyncManager.aspx.