replicating a folder to multiple machines

replicating a folder to multiple machines

Author
Discussion

Trustmeimadoctor

Original Poster:

12,597 posts

155 months

Thursday 31st July 2014
quotequote all
hi guys
need a solution to automatically transfer updates to a folder when a machine logs in either via vpn or on the local network.
this data then obviously need to be available offline


offline folders never seems to work correctly for me


so any other ideas free or paid for solutions welcome

GCH

3,991 posts

202 months

Thursday 31st July 2014
quotequote all
Dropbox auto sync?

selwonk

2,124 posts

225 months

Thursday 31st July 2014
quotequote all
Cubby and BitTorrent Sync (free) are worth looking at.

cornet

1,469 posts

158 months

Thursday 31st July 2014
quotequote all

Randomthoughts

917 posts

133 months

Thursday 31st July 2014
quotequote all
Fix Offline folders? Mine never seem to have any issues.

jpringle819

719 posts

239 months

Thursday 31st July 2014
quotequote all
Run robocopy in a script when the VPN connects? I would probably look at fixing offline folders as it always seems to work ok for me

Dave^

7,360 posts

253 months

Thursday 31st July 2014
quotequote all
Dropbox was made for this.

jpringle819

719 posts

239 months

Thursday 31st July 2014
quotequote all
Dropbox isn't really going to work if you want a folder/drive for a server synced on connection to the vpn so that it is available offline though. Robocopy or xcopy can be set to sync only changed files, and it is also possible to purge deleted files.

GlenMH

5,212 posts

243 months

Thursday 31st July 2014
quotequote all
jpringle819 said:
Dropbox isn't really going to work if you want a folder/drive for a server synced on connection to the vpn so that it is available offline though. Robocopy or xcopy can be set to sync only changed files, and it is also possible to purge deleted files.
Why not? Dropbox stores a local copy of the files and then syncs when a connection is made.

Trustmeimadoctor

Original Poster:

12,597 posts

155 months

Thursday 31st July 2014
quotequote all
Bit more info we need it to sync to about 150 laptops one set of directories well be generic ie everyone with these laptops gets it but then there will be another that is dependent on where they are based (remote office)
Issue with login script is it already takes an age to run so we don't want to extend that if we can avoid it. Unfortunately I have no idea how much change there will be

Offline folders we find have a tendency to think they are offline even when they aren't really confuses the users when they think all the data is gone

Server is 2012 clients are 7

Anything else just ask

jpringle819

719 posts

239 months

Thursday 31st July 2014
quotequote all
How about DirectAccess? The alternative is remote access via RDP/Citrix. The only option for offline access to network files is offline files, which is fine when it works but can be a nightmare to troubleshoot/resolve when it goes wrong.

Ved

3,825 posts

175 months

Thursday 31st July 2014
quotequote all
Have a look at ShareFile. Dropbox with proper enterprise features.

Can you describe what you need in more detail?

lestag

4,614 posts

276 months

Friday 1st August 2014
quotequote all
Is the directory read only to the user or will they update documents back on the directory when they sync?
if they update, can you give me a generic folder structure, do more than one user update the same directory?
The issue you may have here is around versioning of documents (who saves last wins)

Randomthoughts

917 posts

133 months

Friday 1st August 2014
quotequote all
I thought you were going to suggest an Acronis product for that!

djfaulkner

1,103 posts

218 months

Friday 1st August 2014
quotequote all
Re-directed folder setup as an Off-line folder?
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj64907...




Trustmeimadoctor

Original Poster:

12,597 posts

155 months

Friday 1st August 2014
quotequote all
thankfully its one way only!

basically from what i gather it will be a photographic archive of products for sales people with a base folder that quite possibly would be empty then serveral subfolders that everyone needs then a specific folder that is just for certain people (but there would be several of these) that cover certain areas (they are seperated in AD) so say you work out of bath

you would have



Photo Archive
|
|__Big product
|
|__Small product
|
|__Other Product
|
|__Bath



London would be
Photo Archive
|
|__Big product
|
|__Small product
|
|__Other Product
|
|__London


The local data would need to be write protected as well.

lestag

4,614 posts

276 months

Friday 1st August 2014
quotequote all
Randomthoughts said:
I thought you were going to suggest an Acronis product for that!
Well... now that you mention it...

Trustmeimadoctor

Original Poster:

12,597 posts

155 months

Monday 4th August 2014
quotequote all
well if there was an acronis solution id hapily look at it !

anyone have any other ideas ?

Polariz

867 posts

155 months

Monday 4th August 2014
quotequote all
This option is a little "left field":

I'm not sure how well this would work for larger files but I used to use a combination of SharePoint and SharePoint Workspace (Formerly known as Groove). You could invite colleagues to workspaces, and then the contents of which would then sync to each member by way of Peer to Peer. You can control who is allowed to read/and write to the SharePoint share either through SharePoint permissions, or as the creator of the particular workspace you could restrict users to what they could see/do. You also don't need VPN either technically, as long as one user in the Workspace can see the file repository (It builds SSL connections to other members and syncs as they come online).

Downside to this is that SharePoint Workspace has been deprecated to OneDrive Pro and I'm not sure MS has feature parity with what used to be a top-notch product. If you have a couple of copies of Office 2010 lying around though it might be worth trialling. You don't necessarily have to have Sharepoint by the way!

Edited by Polariz on Monday 4th August 13:06

Trustmeimadoctor

Original Poster:

12,597 posts

155 months

Monday 4th August 2014
quotequote all
Polariz said:
This option is a little "left field":

I'm not sure how well this would work for larger files but I used to use a combination of SharePoint and SharePoint Workspace (Formerly known as Groove). You could invite colleagues to workspaces, and then the contents of which would then sync to each member by way of Peer to Peer. You can control who is allowed to read/and write to the SharePoint share either through SharePoint permissions, or as the creator of the particular workspace you could restrict users to what they could see/do. You also don't need VPN either technically, as long as one user in the Workspace can see the file repository (It builds SSL connections to other members and syncs as they come online).

Downside to this is that SharePoint Workspace has been deprecated to OneDrive Pro and I'm not sure MS has feature parity with what used to be a top-notch product. If you have a couple of copies of Office 2010 lying around though it might be worth trialling. You don't necessarily have to have Sharepoint by the way!

Edited by Polariz on Monday 4th August 13:06
we have sharepoint

trying citrix sharefile seems very good except it doesnt work through our squid proxy (not an issue its going with our new lines) seems good offers sso etc so should be fairly feature rich also allows us to send large files out and receive files without tying up exchange