A quick tour of synchronizing connected replicas

This topic applies to ArcGIS for Desktop Standard and ArcGIS for Desktop Advanced only.

To synchronize replicas in a connected environment, you can use the Synchronize Changes wizard in ArcGIS for Desktop. To learn about synchronizing in a connected environment, see Connected synchronization.

The wizard provides the following options:

Direction

Connected synchronization allows you to choose the direction in which the changes will be sent. For example, for two-way replicas, you can send changes to the relative replica, get changes from the relative replica, or move changes in both directions. If you choose both directions, changes are first sent in one direction and then sent in the opposite direction, all in one operation. For checkout replicas, only the option to send changes from the child replica to parent replica option is available. For one-way replicas, only the option to send changes in one direction is available. Either from parent-to-child or child-to-parent.

Reconcile Options

During synchronization, a reconcile and post may occur between the synchronization version and the replica version. For information on the synchronization and replica versions and on when reconciles occur, see synchronization and versioning. During this reconcile process, conflicts may occur. You can choose a reconcile policy to define how to handle these conflicts. Reconcile policies include the following:

• Manual—With this policy, if a conflict occurs, the reconcile operation is aborted, and the replica is marked as in conflict. This gives you an opportunity to perform the reconcile operation afterwards either manually or by running some custom reconcile code. Once the reconcile is applied and the changes are posted to the replica version, the replica is no longer in conflict. While the replica is in conflict, it can continue to receive changes but cannot send changes.

  Learn more about Resolving synchronization conflicts manually.

• In favor of the geodatabase1—In this case, the representation in geodatabase1 is automatically used over the representation in geodatabase2 if there is a conflict. Since the conflicts are resolved automatically, the replica is never in a conflict state after synchronizing with this policy.
• In favor of the geodatabase2—In this case, the representation in geodatabase2 is automatically used over the representation in geodatabase1 if there is a conflict. Since the conflicts are resolved automatically, the replica is never in a conflict state after synchronizing with this policy.

The default policy is for the parent replica's representation to be used. This can be either in favor of geodatabase1 or in favor of geodatabase2, depending on which one contains the parent replica.

For two-way replication, if you choose to synchronize in both directions, you cannot choose a manual reconcile policy.

You can also choose between column level and row level conflict detection for this reconcile.

Learn more about Reconciling a version.

Note:

The import phase of the synchronization process occurs within a transaction. The second phase of a synchronization includes a reconcile, which also occurs in a transaction. Resources needed, such as undo space or logical log files, will vary with the amount of changes to be synchronized. If the import phase completes but the reconcile phase returns an error, the replica will appear as if in conflict and you can later go in and complete the reconcile manually.