File copy on write service/tool

Hi all,

sorry I post my question here, but I found no group that fits better, any I
suspect that DFS gurus may most likely have the info I need.

The situation: I have a server hosting several third party applications. A
cold standby server should be established. Most databases are SQL server
hosted, and the mirroring mechanism of SQL server provides sufficient
redundancy. But there's life outside SQL server, some config files of those
applications need to be copied to a second server as soon as they are
modified.

DFS and FRS are no options, since AFAIK they do not support single files.

The "plan B" solution would be to check/copy those files using a background
task every minute or so, which is not very elegant of course. Tools liks
Sysinternal's FileMon are able to list file accesses/writes/closes as they
happen, so it should be possible to write a background service which has a
list of files to monitor, and copies any modified files to a different
location as soon as the file is closed.

Does anyone have knowledge of such a service ...?

Thanks,

AL.

Robocopy can monitor for changes and then move the file. I have never tried to
run it as a scheduled job or on one file though.

DFSR may be a possibility too as you may be able to set up an exclusion list
that leaves only the config files etc. as being replicated.


On Tue, 2 Jun 2009 02:13:02 -0700, Nimral <>
wrote:

>Hi all,
>
>sorry I post my question here, but I found no group that fits better, any I
>suspect that DFS gurus may most likely have the info I need.
>
>The situation: I have a server hosting several third party applications. A
>cold standby server should be established. Most databases are SQL server
>hosted, and the mirroring mechanism of SQL server provides sufficient
>redundancy. But there's life outside SQL server, some config files of those
>applications need to be copied to a second server as soon as they are
>modified.
>
>DFS and FRS are no options, since AFAIK they do not support single files.
>
>The "plan B" solution would be to check/copy those files using a background
>task every minute or so, which is not very elegant of course. Tools liks
>Sysinternal's FileMon are able to list file accesses/writes/closes as they
>happen, so it should be possible to write a background service which has a
>list of files to monitor, and copies any modified files to a different
>location as soon as the file is closed.
>
>Does anyone have knowledge of such a service ...?
>
>Thanks,
>
>AL.
--
Dave Mills
There are 10 types of people, those that understand binary and those that don't.