Hi,
I (sysamin of an SME) am currently an exclusive windows 2K user. I am offering you the chanllenge to convert me over to a linux user providing linux can solve my problem (and I sure hope it does) so please accept my challenge
We have Multiple satalite offices and one Head Office. We also have one large branch, which is my main concern here.
I am based at head office and we have hardware VPN's over ADSL to connect the satalites and main branch to head office. There is a central fileserver here which all branches and satalites access for files.
The problem is that all the ADSL connections only have 256k upstreams, so as you can imagine with several VPN lans connected trnasfering files can take ages. This is not so much a problem for occasional file access from satalite offices, but for the main branch, several users could be trying to use the 256k connection at the same time, as we are dealing with large spreadsheets, powerpoints etc it can take 10 - 20 mins to open a file at the branch.
I have already worked out what I want the solution to be, but windows does not seem to offer what I am looking for, so this is where you guys come in.
This is what I want
HEAD = Head office fileserver
BRANCH = Branch office fileserver
I want to physically mirror the fileshare drives on HEAD and BRANCH so that the exact same files are availably locally at both the head office and the branch office.
Here is the twisty bit (as I am aware of basic file replication techniques in windows already)
1) when someone opens a file at the branch office, they open a local copy of the file from the BRANCH server.
2) I want the BRANCH server to tell HEAD server that the file is in use and thus lock the file from editing, so it is locked at both HEAD and BRANCH and only 1 person at any 1 time on the WAN can get R/W access to a file
3) when the user at the branch office has finished editing the file and clicks save, the file is to be saved on BRANCH
4) BRANCH now knows that it has a more up to date version of the file then HEAD, so the file must be kept locked WAN wide for the time being.
5) BRANCH now background transfers the file over to HEAD (so speed is no longer important) so that HEAD and BRANCH now once again have identical copies of the file.
6) Now that the files are up to date on both servers BRANCH can tell HEAD its ok to unlock the file now.
The same would happen the other way arround if someone edited a file at head office where HEAD would lock the file wan wide, background transfer it over and then unlock it again
So.... come on guys .... is linux the man for the job?
Thanks for taking the time to read this, I look forward to your responses
Luke