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METALOGIX REPLICATOR
FOR SHAREPOINT: Supporting
Government and Military
Missions Worldwide
Contents
Introduction.......................................................................................................................................................................2
Coalition and extranet collaboration.................................................................................................................... 3
Deploying military units................................................................................................................................................. 4
Fob-rob collaboration....................................................................................................................................................4
sharepoint coop (continuity of operations)...........................................................................................................5
Afloat collaboration......................................................................................................................................................6
about metalogix replicator..........................................................................................................................................7
about metalogix.................................................................................................................................................................7
Copyright © 2012 Metalogix International GmbH. All rights reserved. Metalogix is a trademark of Metalogix International GmbH. StoragePoint is a registered
trademark of BlueThread Technologies, Inc. Microsoft, Exchange Server, Microsoft Office, SharePoint, and SQL Server are registered trademarks of Microsoft
Corporation.
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Introduction
Metalogix has been developing and offering replication software for SharePoint since the inception of SharePoint
2003. Beginning in 1999, Metalogix had developed a replication solution for the OpenText Livelink platform
which was adapted to support the SharePoint platform in 2003. Over the past seven years, Metalogix has
developed a great reputation in the marketplace, with customers, partners and with Microsoft. As a company,
Metalogix has enjoyed a steady and stable growth path. Metalogix’s product has evolved due in large part
to the input and requirements of Department of Defense and Fortune 100 customers worldwide. Metalogix’s
commercial business for replication has been strong over the years as well. On the commercial side, Metalogix
can count as customers numerous Fortune 100 firms, large financial institutions, major energy companies, and
numerous commercial maritime and cruise lines.
Within the US government, customers of Metalogix’s Replicator solutions for SharePoint include:
• US Air Force Central Command
• US Army Logistics Innovation Agency
• US Army INSCOM
• US Army Sustainment Command
• US Navy APAN
• US Department of the Interior
• US Department of State
• US Special Operations Command
• National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency (NOAA)
• Intelligence Agencies
The following scenarios illustrate the most common military use cases for Metalogix’s replicator solution for
SharePoint.
• Coalition and Extranet Collaboration
• Deploying Military Units
• FOB-ROB Collaboration
• SharePoint COOP
• Afloat Collaboration
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Coalition and extranet collaboration
Now more than ever coalition military forces must have the ability to work together, collaborate and share information in a real-time and secure manner. This need for information sharing is further extend to include NGOs,
civilian agencies, and Aid organizations as they work alongside military entities to provide quick and effective
responses to natural disasters around the world.
Metalogix's Replicator is uniquely positioned to facilitate scenarios such as this through our ability to support
granular, selective and rules based SharePoint replication. Replicator offers features such as this along with "firewalled mode" which allows for important SharePoint content to be shared with the appropriate external entity
without jeopardizing security.
It is important that cross-firewall replication still maintain strong security. For that reason, IT managers should
be able to selectively replicate specific content and be able to configure bi-directional replication through a firewall, not just uni-directional replication. Many products offer content replication, few offer bi-directional replication through a firewall.
Connect for Replicator offers enhanced management, monitoring and audit features so that documents can be
tracked (and deleted if necessary) as they traverse a multi-tiered SharePoint environment.
Selective replication provides the ability to decide what specific content is replicated and what is not, based on
attributes including Published or Confidential parameters to even further reduce bandwidth requirements or
provide logical separation of data.
If managers want only selected content replicated, they can define it according to specific metadata and document attributes. Conversely, if managers want to have the entire web application replicated, including the presentation layer, they can make the external user experience virtually identical to the user experience at the main
farm.
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deploying military units
SharePoint has been embraced and in use in tactical environments for some years
now. In some cases military personnel first learned SharePoint in theater and
brought that knowledge back "home" insisting on using SharePoint to solve key collaborative needs (in garrison) when their units are not deployed.
Once back home, what happens to the tactical SharePoint environment and
knowledge it contains if the server sits in a warehouse until the next deployment?
Wouldn't it be great if a unit could take a copy of their garrison based SharePoint
environment with them when they deploy, plug it in to the network once in theater
and automatically synch that forward deployed server with the one back home?
True lifecycle knowledge management can be achieved in
this scenario which enables the unit to "Train how they fight
and fight like they train" by collaborating in the same way,
using the same tools in all phases of deployment.
Metalogix's Replicator for SharePoint offers a unique and
powerful solution to address this 'portability' scenario, allowing an organization to pack-up or take a copy of their
SharePoint environment with them as they deploy, store it
on a piece of media if necessary, and deploy it or install it on
separate hardware in theater. Changes to each SharePoint
environment can be saved then synched up post deployment. As with the FOB-ROB (forward operating base/rear
operationg base) scenario, two live environments can be
kept in synch real-time or periodically using Replicator.
Fob-rob collaboration
In today's dynamic global environment, military and civilian government organizations must be positioned to handle
an increased deployment tempo to support military and
disaster response scenarios. A key challenge is ensuring
that "forward deployed" entities can effectively collaborate,
communicate and share mission information with personnel
at the headquarters location back home. Having distinctly
separate 'islands' of SharePoint collaboration is simply unacceptable and represents a risk to their mission.
Metalogix's Replicator for SharePoint offers a unique and powerful solution to address scenarios such as this by
enabling organizations to replicate SharePoint content between and among geographically dispersed locations in
far flung and bandwidth challenged parts of the world. Users benefit by having the same robust SharePoint experience regardless of their location. Commanders and government executives alike require a common operating
picture and real-time visibility into what is going on across their organization.
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Remote and forward deployed locations share a number of operational challenges, including:
• Long user wait-times
• Outdated content
• Slow network bandwidth and latency issues
Placing SharePoint servers in geographically distributed locations improves performance for local users, and
provides up-to-date content in the event of a network disruption.
SharePoint coop (continuity of operations)
As use of SharePoint has grown exponentially over the past six years across the US Military and Civilian Agencies, SharePoint has become increasingly mission critical. Many of these organizations have struggled to understand how best to ensure user access to that critical content during and after a crisis or outage. At the same time,
users in these organizations require 'always on' SharePoint while IT seeks to conduct periodic perform maintenance on their environment without disrupting end user access. SharePoint is a unique application platform
which requires a unique approach toward addressing Continuity of Operations requirements (COOP).
Metalogix's Replicator product provides an unique solution for COOP by offering a true "Active-Active" solution whereby multiple geo-dispersed instances of SharePoint containing common content are kept in synch in
real-time. The dual benefit of this approach means that the COOP site for HQ could potentially be located at the
HQ's largest secondary office location. Users at the second location can use their local farm to ensure rapid local
access, while also addressing COOP between the two locations.
Active-Active real-time replication of content provides inherent redundancy that protects against data loss and
corruption. Every time content is changed on any of the local servers, this content should be replicated to a
contingency server. If a main server fails, you can substitute the contingency server, and operations continue
uninterrupted. When the main server has been repaired or replaced, content can be replicated back to the main
server, which can then be placed back into service.
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Because agency operations move so quickly, it is critical that disaster recovery operations move equally quickly,
to ensure that operations do not suffer, and that there is no impact on the underlying mission. Every minute that
a local server or mission critical application is offline has a very real effect on the mission.
Agencies interested in backup plans and disaster recovery solutions will be very interested in the active-active
approach. Should the central server become unavailable for any reason, real-time replication provides identical
content. Since the other servers have the most current versions of content, an organization can continue business
virtually unimpeded.
An active-active network topology contains at least two copies of mission-critical data. All files are synchronized
so that if any server fails, users are routed to a surviving server. This strategy allows you to use disaster recovery
resources live, during everyday business operations, proving daily that the strategy works, and that enterprise
content is available when and where it is needed.
Metalogix is the only vendor that can provide real-time "application level" replication in SharePoint. This means
that we can deliver 'always on' SharePoint whereby both farms are 'active-active' and able to support users on either or both sites with no downtime. You can perform maintenance on one Farm and 'cache' changes which will
synch up the other side once maintenance is complete. Additionally, Metalogix allows you to replicate between
different versions of SharePoint which facilitates ongoing operations during service pack installations.
Afloat collaboration
Collaborating in afloat operating environments
pose some unique challenges – challenges that
Metalogix solutions have successfully helped key
global organizations across many industries to
overcome.
Collaboration amongst and across afloat Navy
and coalition environments poses similar challenges as those experienced on the commercial
maritime side. Afloat military environments have
the same bandwidth and latency challenges as
commercial maritime, but they must also securely
collaborate between ships and across coalition
boundaries. A one size fits all or broadcast approach simply does not work in these environments.
Metalogix’s Replicator for SharePoint offers a unique and powerful solution to address afloat scenarios, allowing ships to collaborate on SharePoint content with headquarters, among ships, and across coalition boundaries.
Replicator makes complex replication architectures possible, including tiered replication, point to point replication, and many to many replication. Metalogix’s rule-based and granular replication capabilities allow organizations to selectively replicate content where it needs to be shared, while allowing each entity the flexibility to be
masters of their own environment. And, the clever use of byte differencing technology enables organizations to
overcome even the most challenged bandwidth environments.
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about metalogix replicator
Metalogix Replicator for SharePoint is an enterprise SharePoint replication solution that supports NRT, crossdomain, document-level synchronization of any network of Distributed SharePoint farms. Replicator installs
and is managed in the same way that SharePoint is installed and managed. Replicator detects changes in
the SharePoint environment as they occur and batches these changes into replication packages. Windows
Background Intelligent Transfer Service (BITS) is employed by Replicator as the highly-reliable, re-startable
transport for downloading replication packages over fast, slow and unreliable network connections. BITS is
the same content downloading technology used by Microsoft’s Windows Update service. Replicator optionally
uses Remote Differential Compression (RDC) as well as 3rd party hardware or software network compression
solutions to make efficient use of the WAN bandwidth.
about Metalogix
Metalogix is the trusted provider of innovative content lifecycle management solutions for Microsoft SharePoint,
Exchange and Cloud platforms. We deliver high-performance solutions to scale and cost-effectively manage,
move, store, archive and protect enterprise content. Metalogix provides global support to thousands of
customers and strategic partners and is a Microsoft Gold Partner, a managed partner in Microsoft’s High
Potential ISV Group and GSA provider. Metalogix is a privately held company backed by Insight Venture
Partners and Bessemer Venture Partners. For more information, please visit: www.metalogix.com
Metalogix
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[email protected]
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