You can manage replicas using 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 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: checkout/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. Enter a new name and press Enter.
Unregister—Unregisters the replica. If a synchronization version exists, it will also be removed at the same time.
View log—Opens up 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 will be 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 up the Replica Properties dialog box. Replica properties are discussed in more detail below.
The replica log
The replica log is only available for two-way and one-way replicas. To open the replica log from the Replica Manager, right-click on the replica whose log you want to view and choose View Log. The replica log maintains a record of the data messages sent and received by the replica.
At the top of the dialog box is the replica's name 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 messages from 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 receivedEvent—Whether the message was sent (sent changes) or received (rec changes) by this replicaResult—Displays if the message was sent or received successfully or if it caused a conflict when imported to the replicaIf 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 Replica Manager and click Properties. This will bring up the replica properties dialog box, which contains three tabs: General, Description, and Advanced.
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: checkout/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 if 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.
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 if 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 will display 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 if related features and rows are replicated or if related features and rows are 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, then this statement applies. If the Use Geometry column displays False, then 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.
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 that 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 that 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)—This represents 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 will persist; otherwise, they will not persist. By default, these will not persist 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's information. This prevents you from having to browse when running synchronize. If the user name and password do not persist, it will prompt you.
When replicas are created, the parent replica stores the child replica's geodatabase connection information. The child, however, does not store the parent replica's geodatabase connection information. You may want to set this to prevent having to browse during synchronization.
