Open Source Alternative to Microsoft's File Replication Services

Question

We're operating two rather busy locations with 40+Gigs of client data shared on Windows 2003 servers and need to have it replicated (as close to instantaneously as possible) to each.

We're experiencing intermittent replication failures, and have attempted various fixes, but are basically working blind since the errors we're getting in the event log aren't particularly helpful.

So, the best situation would be one that always worked, and when it didn't was transparent about its reasons.

Any suggestions welcome.

Thank you.

Update: We're actually using FRS to to the replication now and the problem still persists.

Solution 1

rsync

there is a mirror option for it. much like robocopy & it is opensource & there are windows binaries!

Solution 2

If you wanted to cobble something together, I suppose you could use robocopy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robocopy) to mirror your fileshare to a secondary location, but for multimaster replication (where users can add/remove files in either location and have the change be reflected in the other locations), FRS is really the way to go.

Even better, if you are running Windows Server 2003 R2 or later, use DFS (the successor for FRS) that has some neat new features above and beyond what FRS provides (http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2003/technologies/storage/dfs/default.mspx)

-Sean

Solution 3

I know this is not for Windows but you may want to check out DRBD. If you use conventional ext2/ext3/reiserfs filesystem, you will have an active node and a spare. If you use more powerful OCFS/GFS you will have an active/active cluster. This is very efficient.

Comments

[Deb]

Product and service recommendations, including alternatives recon, is off-topic per the FAQ.

[Nick Kavadias]

DFS & robocopy are not open source

[Ryaner]

Rsync does a differential copy nearly always. Robocopy has a switch for differential copy. Even FRS (now DFS) can enable differential compression so you should never get to a stage where you are copying full files across.

[Dave Klotz]

Rsync does a differential copy on flat text, but does it do a worthwhile differential on the Microsoft office formats that someone using Server 2003 is probably using?

[Chris]

@Ryaner - You are incorrect about Robocopy and FRS. They will both transmit the entire file if a single byte changes. Rsync however does appear to do byte level changes, as does DFSR in Win2003 R2.