Windows Mobile Data Synchronization

I did a lot of work with merge replication a while back (around 2003/04). For the most part it worked pretty well. I recall we had a few issues - certainly getting up to speed with the technology and deploying it in a real world production environment was a non-trivial exercise and I recall many late nights. But by and large when we did have problems they could be resolved by resetting the snapshot or performing some other DBA type operation - no abolute show stoppers aside from the fact that you did need to have DBA like skills - this wasn't a hands-off technology at that time.

So fast forward a few years, it is 2008 and we're working on releasing our flagship product FieldMetrix which in essence is a mobile logistics and workflow solution. One of the tasks I had on my list was to look at the custom serialization process we are using to sync data from the FieldMetrox servers to the Windows Mobile clients. Our custom serialization has been a lot of work but it's been a worthwhile investment because it's very robust, tunable and flexible. We can inject tasks into the modules that handle the serialization and deserialization on both the client and server sides providing control at a very granular level. The handshake protocol that provides controlled client-to-server and server-to-client disconnection recovery works flawlessly. Both the serialization and the handshake protocols are sizable components of the FieldMetrix solution which we would have not needed if we had proceeded down the SQL Server CE Merge Replication path. So, if only to satisfy my techie soul, I wanted to quickly brush up on my Merge Replication knowledge to make sure we weren't reinventing the wheel.

Enter Rob Tiffany. I hadn't been in touch with Rob for ages and a few monthes ago he pinged me in his new role at Microsoft. Rob's been a busy guy - he authored a new book called "Windows Mobile Data Synchronization with SQL Server 2005 and SQL Server 3.1" as well as being responsible for the "Windows Mobile Line Of Business Solutions Accelerator 2008" developer sample.

Rob's new book is a gem. It's exactly the format I like, concise and very practical. He outlines exactly how to set up a 4 tier Windows Mobile Merge Replication architecture in a step by step fashion with plenty of screen grabs. I'm about half-way through but props to Rob - this is an awesome book well worth the $20 the book is at Amazon.