So the aim is to have a single centralised CRM Organisation sharing data, but with multiple localised SharePoint instances to give better performance when downloading/uploading documents. So CRM data will be shared with the regions, and SharePoint
data replicated across the regions.
I believe this is do-able, but would create two tasks:
(1) A load-balancing style server which would redirect a user accessing 'http://sharepoint' to the correct localised SharePoint Server for their region.
(2) SQL or SharePoint Replication to create a copy of the Document Data in each local SQL Server to keep the different Regions SharePoint stores in synch - which I could imagine been quite tricky, would need a strong DBA/Infrastructure resource.
If possible would be tempted to investigate whether you could store all the SharePoint data in a central Database server, with different front-end Application Servers for each region. Bandwidth-wise you could then install a dedicated pipe between the
localised Application Servers and the central Database Server to try and give good performance without getting into data replication.
Depending on the region's bandwidth and likelihood of installing a good pipe may or may not be possible, but could save a lot of project costs if you could.
Be worth asking in the SharePoint forums whether any of the SharePoint Experts have experience of using SQL Replication to duplicate Document Data across different SharePoint instances.
Kind Regards, Paul |
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