Q&A on OCS & Sync Services for ADO.NET

re: Q&A on OCS & Sync Services for ADO.NET

ErikEJ — Mon, 19 Mar 2007 12:05:54 GMT

Hi Steve, what is the story for device development? As far as I can see Sync Services will not be available for devices in the Orcas timeframe.

re: Q&A on OCS & Sync Services for ADO.NET

ErikEJ — Mon, 19 Mar 2007 12:08:53 GMT

Sorry Steve, somehow overlooked: Will Sync Services ship on both the desktop framework and the .NET Compact Framework?

ADO.NET Synch Services FAQ

The Problem Solver — Mon, 19 Mar 2007 14:32:52 GMT

Steve Lasker has compiled a FAQ with questions and answers people might have about using the ADO.NET

re: Q&A on OCS & Sync Services for ADO.NET

Steve.Lasker — Mon, 19 Mar 2007 17:34:51 GMT

Hi Erik,

I've added info on ship dates, including our offset ship cycle for devices. We're not thrilled with this plan, but it's the best we can do for now. We are working to pull it in, so ...please stand by...

Steve

re: Q&A on OCS & Sync Services for ADO.NET

rogerj — Mon, 19 Mar 2007 20:15:02 GMT

Pingback from http://oakleafblog.blogspot.com/2007/03/sync-services-for-adonet-overview.html

re: Q&A on OCS & Sync Services for ADO.NET

Fox-Jazz — Tue, 20 Mar 2007 17:35:48 GMT

We have our own homegrown sync. Which delivers data via web services.

It is an on-demand sync. Is the data compressed before it is sent (to/from) client.

Also what about directory sync. We use a hash compare for each file to "extra verify" the clients run the code we expect them to.

Ever since implementing this structure, we have had litterally NO problems with code updates and deliverables.

We are looking into a different project, and it is important that the data is compressed before sent to the server. Or is this defined by the transport?

re: Q&A on OCS & Sync Services for ADO.NET

Steve.Lasker — Thu, 22 Mar 2007 02:39:36 GMT

Hi Fox/Jazz

Today, we don't do file sync. We will be adding file sync in future version of the overall Microsoft Sync Platform (MSP). And today we don't do any compression. We do leave it up to the transport. That said, I'm sure this will be a common thing, and we'll need to address this more directly than just saying it's "not my job" and look to the transport. However, it won't be in the first release.

Steve

Road Map

Sync Services FAQ — Thu, 22 Mar 2007 19:53:24 GMT

Q: What's the roadmap for Merge, RDA and Sync Services A: Merge replication will continue to be our database

Combining Merge and Sync Services

Sync Services FAQ — Thu, 22 Mar 2007 19:55:26 GMT

Q: Can I use Merge and Sync Services together? A: As we've all seen with our SQLce and Express discussions

re: How to use SqlCE 3.5 in VS 2005?

GSR — Thu, 12 Apr 2007 17:57:10 GMT

Hi Steve,

I have downloaded Microsoft Synchronization Services for ADO.NET CTP from:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=75FEF59F-1B5E-49BC-A21A-9EF4F34DE6FC&displaylang=en

This download package contains the SQL Server Compact Edition 3.5 and I have installed the same. Before that I was having SqlCE 3.1 and able to work with that fine from C# application on Desktop.

After installing the new one I could see V3.1 and V3.5 folders at: C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server Compact Edition\. But when I tried to create a new data connection from Visual Studio 2005, it directly making use of V3.1.

Does anybody know how to make use of this newer version in my C# application with in Visual Studio 2005 and also enabling the same in SQL Server Management Studio?

It’s an urgent requirement for me; please do spend couple of minutes in providing the solution for this.

Thanks in advance

re: Q&A on OCS & Sync Services for ADO.NET

Steve.Lasker — Sat, 14 Apr 2007 18:11:58 GMT

Hi GSR,

Unfortunately 3.5 will not work with the designer features of Visual studio 2005. The designers are looking for a particular version, 3.1. My suggestion is to use the 3.1 designers, but change your project reference to the 3.5 version and you should be fine. I believe in the CTP we don’t differentiate database versions.

Steve

"Ask Udi" Podcast on Occasionally Connected Smart Clients and ADO.NET Sync Services

Solution Architecture — Wed, 18 Apr 2007 07:31:39 GMT

This week’s question comes from Oran who asks: Hi Udi, I’m enjoying the recent discussion on Entity...

re: Q&A on OCS & Sync Services for ADO.NET

Em — Thu, 07 Jun 2007 05:48:27 GMT

Hi Steve, will there be a sync client provider for SQL Express. If yes - is this a priority and when could we expect to see this.

Cheers .E

re: Q&A on OCS & Sync Services for ADO.NET

Steve.Lasker — Wed, 20 Jun 2007 07:00:54 GMT

We have had several requests for a SQL Server Express client provider. While not in our initial plans as we've been thinking about Express as the server and SQLce as the client, we will likely have something in the Sync Services for ADO.NET v2 timeframe. Unfortunately, I can't provide more detail as we're still working out some of our planning schedules.

Steve

How to synchronize between local Sql servers (compact edition and mobile) to Sql server 2005

Wortzel's blog — Fri, 27 Jul 2007 17:48:10 GMT

One of the common options to synchronize several distributed sql servers to a central Sql server 2005

how to roll back synchronize()

Manish — Sat, 11 Aug 2007 13:21:57 GMT

hello Mr. Steve.

I am developing sql express-server merge replication for web synchronization using RMO. I want to rollback sync when any error occurs or user presses cancel to roll back synchronization operation.

how can i abort or roll back or stop sychronisation so that next synchronisation can be done without problems....?

Thanking you

Manish

re: Q&A on OCS & Sync Services for ADO.NET

Steve.Lasker — Wed, 15 Aug 2007 23:42:17 GMT

Hi Manish,

I checked with Vijay, PM for Merge Replication and this is what he had to say:

You cannot really rollback synchronization. You can cancel the agent by killing the backgroundworker thread that is hosting the MergesynchronizationAgent.synchronize call.

Synchronization makes incremental progress in batches and updates the synchronization watermark once for each batch so the SQL database may have already received or sent changes before you stopped the synchronize call

Steve

re: Q&A on OCS & Sync Services for ADO.NET

Troy — Thu, 16 Aug 2007 09:23:45 GMT

Hi Steve,

I've been Googling for an answer but haven't found it, so I hope this isn't a stupid question...

How do sync services/sql compact handle data types that are supposed in sql server [express] and not in sql compact ? Things like varchar(max) (or just [n]varchar > 4000 characters), XML, user defined types, etc. ?

Thanks.

re: Q&A on OCS & Sync Services for ADO.NET

Steve.Lasker — Fri, 17 Aug 2007 20:12:08 GMT

Hi Troy,

Sync Services, RDA and Merge Replication all use a mapping to upsize, downsize the datatypes between SQLce and SQL Server. SQLce supports a subset/superset of datatypes. For instance , SQLce doesn’t support both nVarChar and VarChar. It only supports nVarChar which is the double byte superset of VarChar. XML becomes nText. For a complete listing of the mappings, the online docs can be found here.

SQLce will continue to evolve its data types for the appropriate set in a compact footprint.

Steve

re: Q&A on OCS & Sync Services for ADO.NET

Allan Downs — Fri, 14 Sep 2007 04:13:36 GMT

Where are we with the sync services for devices?

re: Q&A on OCS & Sync Services for ADO.NET

jainmanishs — Wed, 26 Sep 2007 13:00:23 GMT

when i run SnapshotGenerationAgent.GenerateSnapshot(), it fails.

the log file generated is as follows

............................

Flushing cabinet folder

The replication agent had encountered an exception.

Source: Replication

Exception Type: Microsoft.SqlServer.Replication.FciException

Exception Message: The replication agent had encountered a file compression (cabinet) library error while calling 'FCIDestroy()'.

Message Code: 4

what this error indicates .. i am not able to track what is mistake

pls let me konw asap

FOLLOWING IS THE CODE THAT I AM USING TO RUN SNAPSHOT AGENT

private static EReturnValue generateSnapshot()

{

if (!publisherConn.IsOpen)

{

return EReturnValue.Failure;

}

EReturnValue retVal = EReturnValue.Success;

SnapshotGenerationAgent agent=new SnapshotGenerationAgent();;

try

{

//SET THE STATUS EVENT

mPublicationStatusInfo = new StringBuilder(1024);//CAPACITY IS 1024

agent.Status += new AgentCore.StatusEventHandler(snapshotAgentStatus);

agent.Distributor = DistributorName;

agent.DistributorLogin = DBLogin;

agent.DistributorPassword = DBPassword;

agent.Publisher = PublisherName;

agent.PublisherLogin = DBLogin;

agent.PublisherPassword = DBPassword;

agent.PublisherDatabase = PublicationDatabaseName;

agent.ReplicationType = ReplicationType.Merge;

agent.Publication = PublicationName;

agent.GenerateSnapshot();

retVal = EReturnValue.Success;

}

catch (Exception ex)

{

#if debug

MessageBox.Show(ex.Message);

#endif

retVal = EReturnValue.Failure;

}

finally

{

writeStatusInfoInLogFile();

}

return retVal;

}

Manish

re: Q&A on OCS & Sync Services for ADO.NET

jainmanishs — Wed, 26 Sep 2007 15:27:32 GMT

Hello Mr. steve ,

I am facing one more problem.

i am not clear how first time synchronisation and later synchronisation are different.

When first time synchronisation fails then my both publisher database and subscription database gets corrupted i mean to both are in inconsistant state. at subscriber database i am not allowed to insert update or delete.

while delete i am having following error:

Msg 20092, Level 16, State 1, Procedure MSmerge_disabledml_6929E0D8B2654CB68853D26BDC6EAE68, Line 8

Table '[dbo].[WMArea]' into which you are trying to insert, update, or delete data is currently being upgraded or initialized for merge replication. On the publisher data modifications are disallowed until the upgrade completes and snapshot has successfully run. On subscriber data modifications are disallowed until the upgrade completes or the initial snapshot has been successfully applied and it has synchronized with the publisher.

Msg 3609, Level 16, State 1, Line 1

The transaction ended in the trigger. The batch has been aborted.

This problem happens when intial snapshot is applied for the first time. here i need to do syncronisation with existing database. the tables which are published may be already filled. but before first time sync i am emptying all the published tables. and then i am starting synchronisation for first time.

Please provide possible solution.

Thanking u

Manish

re: Q&A on OCS & Sync Services for ADO.NET

Partha — Wed, 10 Oct 2007 12:49:35 GMT

When there is change committed in the Server Database what happens during Synchronization?

(i) All the Data from the Server is downloaded to the client and only the changes are applied and seen in the Client Database.

(ii) Only the changed row, is downloaded and seen in the client database.

This task is doen by the SyncAgent. Am I true.

re: Q&A on OCS & Sync Services for ADO.NET

Steve.Lasker — Tue, 16 Oct 2007 07:22:35 GMT

Hi Partha,

Sync models are typically patterned around a flow of the client first pushing up changes, then asking for server changes which is the model Sync Services follows. And yes, the SyncAgent is the orchestrator of the overall flow.

Steve

re: Q&A on OCS & Sync Services for ADO.NET related to FCIDestroy()

jainmanishs — Thu, 15 Nov 2007 09:21:29 GMT

finally i come with work around. I removed the code that is creating

cab(zip) from snapshot files. when i avoided compression of snapshots

it behaves nicely. I feel that there is problem in library related to

FCIDestroy() who is performing compression.

By checking all performance we decided to remove compression of

snapshot and now it works fine.

thanks a lot for your help.

re: Q&A on OCS & Sync Services for ADO.NET

jainmanishs — Thu, 15 Nov 2007 09:26:48 GMT

About issue of trigger related problem i deleted all triggers related to synchronisation and the problem is solved. The sql command i used to delete is as follows

strQry = new StringBuilder(

//step 1 : get list of all triggers(applied on published tables) whose names are starting with ‘MSmerge’

"Declare @sql nvarchar(4000);" +

" Select @sql=COALESCE(@sql+'],[','')+NAME from sys.triggers " +

//here COALESCE function Returns the first nonnull expression among its arguments

" WHERE name LIKE 'MSmerge%' AND PARENT_CLASS=1;" +

" set @sql = '['+@sql+']';" +

//" PRINT @sql;"+

//step 2 : drop all the triggers(applied on published tables)

"set @sql = 'drop trigger ' + @sql;" +

//"print @sql;"+

"exec sp_executesql @sql;");

Thanks a lot Mr. Steve

link to problem:http://blogs.gotdotnet.com/stevelasker/archive/2007/03/18/QAforOCS_2D00_SyncServicesForAdoNet.aspx#5143341

Connectivity Cross Version Compatibility (SQL Server Compact 3.5)

SQL Server Compact - Compact & Capable — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 06:55:25 GMT

Connectivity Cross Version Compatibility This blog post explains the Merge Replication connectivity cross

re: Q&A on OCS & Sync Services for ADO.NET

stanley_ — Sun, 10 Feb 2008 14:19:03 GMT

Do you know any resource (tutorial,sample app) that show how to secure your sync service (conn string send over the internet)

Would like to use SSL /https

re: Q&A on OCS & Sync Services for ADO.NET

Steve.Lasker — Sun, 10 Feb 2008 17:21:55 GMT

HI Stanley,

If you use the ‘N tier solution, the client doesn’t have any knowledge of the server side information. All the client needs to know is the service address and any authentication information for the service. The service has the server side connection string, and any specific T-SQL statements.

Here's a screencast,
Going N Tier w/WCF, Synchronizing data using Sync Services for ADO.NET and SQL Server Compact Edition

and a sample project:
SyncNTierWithWCF Sample

Steve

re: Q&A on OCS & Sync Services for ADO.NET

Shane — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 22:27:11 GMT

Hi Steve

I've watched the screencasts and looked through much of the sample code available from MS and elsewhere and I'm left wanting. I'm looking to make use of SQL Server 2008 change tracking and the only close to real example code I can find is partial and difficult (impossible?) to integrate with Visual Studio 2008 Sync Designer generated code (sample code referenced here http://blogs.msdn.com/agujjar/archive/2008/01/09/sync-services-with-sql-2008.aspx).

I'm looking for a real sample project that makes use of SQL Server 2008 change tracking as the "anchor" to allow for partial client updates. Any tips, advice, pointers, samples or anything else you can point me to?

re: Q&A on OCS & Sync Services for ADO.NET

Steve.Lasker — Sun, 30 Mar 2008 02:21:11 GMT

Hi Shane,

I know we have some internal samples. Let me see what I can dig up.

Steve

re: Q&A on OCS & Sync Services for ADO.NET

Steve.Lasker — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 03:14:31 GMT

Hi Shane,

Here's a walk through that should help. There's a bit of a formatting issue that we're trying to get fixed, so just copy/paste and the VS/SQL tools will clean things up.

How to: Use SQL Server Change Tracking

And just to help, here's the VS patch to enable the SQL Server 2008 CTP with VS 2008

Visual Studio 2008 Support for SQL Server 2008, Community Technology Preview

Steve

Web application using MS Synch Framework

Balaji — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 12:38:56 GMT

Hi,

Is it possibe to create a web application using MS Synch Framework. If possible, how to build the application. How MS Synch check the network connectivity and how the data will automatically populated to local database. And if the network comes, how the data will automatically moved to server database. And how to make the synchronization between the two database in both online and offline mode. can you please provide a sample Web application(Solution) for understanding the network as well as synchronization feature

Steve Lasker's Web Log : Q&A on OCS & Sync Services for ADO.NET

Dating — Sat, 31 May 2008 11:54:10 GMT

Not surprisingly we've been get a lot of great questions about specific features and scenarios for our new Sync Services for ADO.NET (OCS). Rafik has been fielding most of these on the Sync Services forums . Since the Q&amp;A for SQLce seemed popular

Steve Lasker's Web Log : Q&A on OCS & Sync Services for ADO.NET

Weddings — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 19:59:36 GMT

re: Q&A on OCS & Sync Services for ADO.NET

andreas.forstinger — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 13:25:24 GMT

Hi Steve,

thank you for sharing this with us.

I got a question tough. You wrote about "low bandwith scenarios" and the possibility to only sync specific sync groups.

I could not find a way to implement such a behaviour and did not even get much help on this from synchronization services forum, can you point me the right direction?

What i want to achieve is to only sync the most important tables on low connection and do kind of major sync when cradled or within wifi.

Regards,

Andreas

Question on low bandwith scenario

andreas.forstinger — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 14:32:51 GMT

Hi Steve,

thank you for sharing this with us.

I got a question tough. You wrote about "low bandwith scenarios" and the possibility to only sync specific sync groups.

I could not find a way to implement such a behaviour and did not even get much help on this from synchronization services forum, can you point me the right direction?

What i want to achieve is to only sync the most important tables on low connection and do kind of major sync when cradled or within wifi.

Regards,

Andreas

re: Q&A on OCS & Sync Services for ADO.NET

Steve.Lasker — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 16:36:56 GMT

Hi Andres,

Sync Groups are a means to define different transaction boundaries, which also map to different payloads sent between the local and remote providers. So, it’s not really a SyncGroup that you’d use to differentiate synching at different times, but rather a SyncAgent session.

To achieve syncing different tables based on different times, you can configure different SyncAgents. The LookupSyncAgent could contain the list of LookupTables, such as states, codes, etc. You could then create an OrdersSyncAgent that contains the Orders, OrderDetails, Customers, etc.

Sync Services for ADO.NET doesn’t actually contain any means to determine high or low bandwidth connections, but you can use a block from the Patterns & Practices team to determine cost based synchronization. Once you’ve decided it’s a high or low bandwidth connection you can then instance different SyncAgents to control which tables you wish to sync.

Hope that helps,

Steve

ADO.net Sync Service

gavinyan — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 04:00:55 GMT

whilereaseofVisualStudio2008wealsogetv1.0ofADO.NETSynchronizationServicesthatallowsy...

RE: Question on low bandwith scenario

andreas.forstinger — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 10:30:34 GMT

Hi Steve,

thank you for expanding on this.

Regards,

Andreas

re: Q&A on OCS & Sync Services for ADO.NET

Ben — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 16:47:12 GMT

In my app I want to mirror a table in my client, but with out the data. I want sync services to only bring down the structure of the table. The cleint will only upload the records in this table. Two questions:

1) Is there an option or setting so that Sync Services will only pull down the empty table?

2) Having multiple clients and given that the server does not distinguish each cleint, what is to keep there from being repeated Primary Key constaint violations when the clients create new records in a table that has an auto generated Identity field for aprimary key?

re: Q&A on OCS & Sync Services for ADO.NET

Steve.Lasker — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 23:21:57 GMT

Hi Ben,

Yes, you can set the SyncTableDirection to DownloadOnly. It's on the SyncAgent.Configuration.SyncTables collection.

For keys, we really don't do anything special here. The assumption is the app will create unique keys. You can either use GUID's, your own unique identifiers that combine some hashing of a client ID and an incremental number, or use Identity locally, but again hash it with a ClientId, so on the server you wind up with a compound primary key of (ClientId, NumberId)

Steve

re: Q&A on OCS & Sync Services for ADO.NET

Nenad Marković — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 01:20:53 GMT

How Sync Services work with NHibernate or some other ORM tool/framework ?

How can I get more info in case of sync failures?

david hary — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 06:09:15 GMT

Are there error logs of the sync events? If so where can be found. Otherwise, is there a way to get more info on sync failures.

Thanks

David

re: Q&A on OCS & Sync Services for ADO.NET

Sanand — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 15:47:19 GMT

Please give me example how to implement row filter in occassionally connected smart device application using Microsoft Sync Service ADO .NET V1............pref in VB.

Thanks

Sanand

re: Q&A on OCS & Sync Services for ADO.NET

Sanand — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 15:47:30 GMT

Please give me example how to implement row filter in occassionally connected smart device application using Microsoft Sync Service ADO .NET V1............pref in VB.

Thanks

Sanand

re: Q&A on OCS & Sync Services for ADO.NET

lakshmi — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 16:26:21 GMT

Hi ,

In Orcas the Visual Studio

Which transport is Efficient(WCF,WEB Service) means

Synchronization Services for ADO.NET using WCF

Synchronization Services for ADO.NET using Web services

Thanks

Lakshmi