Estimating the Acceptable Replication Latency

Estimate the level of synchronicity that is required between master replicas and consumer replicas. The Directory Server replication model is loosely consistent, that is, updates are accepted on a master without requiring communication with the other replicas in a topology. At any given time, the contents of each replica might be different. Over time, the replicas converge until each replica has an identical copy of the data. As part of performance planning, determine the maximum acceptable time that replicas have to converge.

Directory Server 6.x includes a new prioritized replication feature. This feature enables you to specify that changes to certain attributes must be replicated as soon as possible. Prioritized replication might affect your decisions about acceptable replication latency. For more information, see Prioritized Replication in Sun Java System Directory Server Enterprise Edition 6.3 Reference.