A quick tour of replica management

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

You can manage replicas using the Replica Manager. With this utility, you can rename, refresh, and review the properties of each replica as well as remove datasets from a replica. You may also view all replicas with a role of parent or child; list only checkout/check-in, one-way, two-way, or all types of replicas; and view the replica log. This utility is available in both ArcCatalog and ArcMap.

To open the Replica Manager, click the Manage Replicas button on the Distributed Geodatabase toolbar. The combo box at the top of the replica manager allows you to control the types of replicas that are listed. By default, all types are listed, but the list can be limited to just checkout, just one-way or just two-way replicas.

The Replica Manager displays the following properties for all replicas listed:

• Name—The name of the replica
• Owner—The user who created the replica
• Type—The type of replica created: Check out/Check in, One way, or Two way
• Role—Shows whether the replica is a parent or child
• Status—Displays whether the replica is currently a data sender or a data receiver
• Conflicts—Displays Yes if there are any outstanding conflicts to be resolved with this replica and No if there are not
• Version—The replica version set during replica creation
• Date Created—The date and time that the replica was created

By right-clicking an individual replica, you bring up a context menu with the following options:

• Rename—Renames the replica; type a new name and press ENTER.
• Unregister—Unregisters the replica; if a synchronization version exists, it will also be removed.
• View log—Opens the Replica Log; this option is only available for one-way and two-way replicas. The Replica Log is discussed in more detail below.
• Refresh—Refreshes the replica; the latest state of the replica properties are displayed.
• Validate schema—Validates the replica schema; a progress bar monitors the status of the validation. This automatically corrects a replica that contains invalid datasets. Datasets can become invalid if they have been renamed, deleted, or unversioned.
• Properties—Opens the Replica Properties dialog box. Replica properties are discussed in more detail below.

The replica log

The replica log maintains a record of the data messages sent and received by the replica. The replica log is only available for two-way and one-way replicas. To open the replica log from the Replica Manager, right-click the replica whose log you want to view and choose View Log.

At the top of the dialog box is the name of the replica whose log you are currently viewing.

You can choose to sort messages in two ways:

• Only list messages since—This option allows you to view messages over a selected number of days. You can view all messages or messages since the last 7, 14, 21, or 28 days.
• Only list the most recent error messages—This option lists only recent messages that caused conflicts or some type of error when imported to the replica.

The replica log shows the Log Date, Event, and Result for each message.

Log Date—The date and time of messages sent or received

Event—Whether the message was sent (sent changes) or received (rec changes) by this replica

Result—Displays whether the message was sent or received successfully or if it caused a conflict when imported to the replica

If the Result column shows that there is a conflict, you can right-click the message that is in error to view the error report. The error report describes why there is a conflict and details the steps involved to remove the replica from its conflict state.

Replica properties

To view the properties of a replica, right-click the replica in the Replica Manager and click Properties. This opens the Replica Properties dialog box, which contains three tabs: General, Description, and Advanced.

1. General

   Under the General tab, the following replica properties are displayed:

   • Name—The name of the replica.
   • Owner—The user who created the replica.
   • Created—The date and time that the replica was created.
   • Type—The type of replica: Check out/Check in, One way, or Two way.
   • Model—Displays the model type; this always displays as Full for checkout/check-in and two-way replicas. For one-way replicas, this property displays either Full or Simple depending on the model type chosen during replica creation.
   • Conflicts—Shows Yes or No depending on whether the replica is in a conflict state or not.
   • Replica version—The replica version associated with this replica.
   • Synchronization version—The synchronization version associated with this replica.

2. Description

   The Description tab in the Replica Properties dialog box shows the datasets that are included in the replica. Columns for these datasets are displayed reflecting the properties chosen from the replica creation process. These dataset properties include the following:

   • Data—The data source of the replicated data.
   • Type—The type of data replicated; feature class, table, geometric network, etc.
   • Replicate—Indicates whether All Features, Schema Only, selection sets, or query definitions were set as filters during creation.
   • Use Geometry—This is set to True if you choose to use the spatial extent or you specify an extent upon replica creation. If, during replica creation, you choose to use the full extent of the data, this will be set to False.
   • Direction—This property is valid for replicated relationship classes only. This displays Forward, Backward, or None depending on what option you picked during replica creation.
   To remove a dataset from the replica, right-click the dataset and choose UnRegister from Replica. The replica will no longer reference the dataset; however, it still remains in the geodatabase. To remove a geometric network or topology, you must remove all the classes at once.

   To view the filters that were applied to the replica dataset during replica creation, right-click the dataset and choose View filters.

   A sentence at the bottom of the dialog box indicates whether related features and rows are replicated or not replicated. A second sentence describes how the replica geometry is applied. For example, by default, features and layers that intersect the geometry are added, but other spatial relations, such as must be completely inside, could have been set at creation time. If the Use Geometry column is set to True, this statement applies. If the Use Geometry column displays False, the full extent of the dataset is used to determine what gets replicated for that particular dataset and not the spatial extent of the replica area.

3. Advanced

   The Advanced tab in the Replica Properties dialog box shows information about the generation numbers associated with the replica. The generation number is a number maintained by the geodatabase, which keeps track of messages being sent and received by the replica. For example, the first data change message sent from one replica to its relative would make the current generation of the replica 1. When the relative imports that message, its relative replica generation gets set to 1. When the replica receives an acknowledgment of the data change message, its last acknowledged generation gets set to 1. The Advanced panel displays the following information about generation numbers:

   • Current Generation—The current generation number, which describes how many data messages were sent from the replica
   • Last Acknowledged Generation—The generation number of the most recent data message for which an acknowledgment has been received
   • Generation (based on last received message)—The current generation number of the relative replica based on the last message imported into this replica
   The Relative Replica Connection contains the connection information of the relative replica. You can set this information by browsing to the location of the relative replica's connection file. After doing so, the Persist user name and password check box becomes enabled. If you check this box, the user name and password are persisted; otherwise, they are not persisted. By default, these are not persisted for security reasons. The connection information is used when you run the synchronize command or the synchronize geoprocessing tool to automatically fill in the relative replica information. This prevents you from having to browse when running synchronize. If the user name and password are not persisted, you will be prompted to provide them.