Wireless Synchronization

[Beebs]

I'm looking for some pointers from people out there. I have a client
who has PPC phones and wants to be able to wirelessly sync data from
anywhere using their PPC phone back to their office server. Is there
a component that makes this easier to do? Can this be done somehow
using GSM? The sync will be somewhat complex in the rules that it
will require...any suggestions anyone, I'm just looking for a starting
point to give me an idea of what directions I have to go in.

Thanks

 

[Saverio Tedeschi]

Hi Beebs,
you can read ton of threads about this here. I faced this and ended up with
RDA (a mix of Pus/Pull and SubmitSql) 'cause merge replications generates
too much traffic, keeping a close eye at minimizing data synced. HTH.

 

[Arun]

Hi Beebs,

You have lot of options for synchronizing data.

Need to first choose whether you are going to sync data with your
desktop database and PPC database. If you are using SQL Server you have
options like

1. Directly Querying SQL Server using SqlClient (Bit Slow while
connecting)
2. RDA or Merge Replication of SQL CE (RDA is Good to start with, merge

replication is little difficult to setup but easy to implement)
3. Web Services (Comparitively Slow)

RDA and Web Services seems to be similar when the size of data is
minimal. If you try to synchronize a large volume of data then there
you will find RDA better than Web Services as for as the data
transfer speed is concerned.

XML Web Services Pros:
1. Cross platform availability
2. Secured using SSL and HTTP Authentication

XML Web Services Cons:
1. Slow Performance (slowest of all)
2. No in-built support for synchronizing data (we will have to
implement)
3. Data transfers as XML so not as efficient as binary formats used
by RDA or Merge Replication
4. SQL Server CE takes up memory if stored in CE tables

SQL Server CE RDA Pros:
1. Simple to setup
2. Rich functionality provided by SQL Server CE

SQL Server CE RDA Cons:
1. SQL Server CE takes up memory
2. No merging functionality built-in (we will have to implement it)
You can choose from these and get the data to SQL CE and your
application will work stand alone.

If your desktop database is not SQL Server, you may choose XML Web
Services as the sync option.

If you are not going to use any database and you can simply sync XML
file or CSV file using Active Sync.

In all the condition you can use SQL Server CE as your PPC database.

Can this be done somehow
using GSM?

GSM is telephony, for sync to work you need a modem and a dial up
connection to establish internet connection so that from field workers
can sync to through the internet.
Other wise GPRS connection can also do the work. Web Services is a
reliable way to do sync when using GPRS.

The sync will be somewhat complex in the rules that it
will require...any suggestions anyone

Can you eloborate this more. I understood like the records can be
changed at both end (PPC and desktop), this can be handled with Merge
Replication between SQL Server and SQL Server CE.


Hope this helps,
Regards,
Arun.
www.innasite.com