What is a synchronization object?

In the Mobile Devices Administration Center, you administer the synchronization process through a set of synchronization objects. A synchronization object contains information about aspects of the synchronization process in your organization. You can create and edit groups, subscriptions, subscription sets, and users to handle your organization's synchronization requirements. Logs are available for viewing only. There are six types of synchronization objects:

Group
A group of users with similar mobile data synchronization needs. You define synchronization characteristics for each group, such as which applications the users in the group need to access to perform their jobs and what subsets of enterprise data they need to access.

User
A user who uses the DB2 Everyplace Sync Server to synchronize data between a source (the enterprise system) and a target (the mobile device). You assign a user to a group to provide access to the subscriptions defined in the group's subscription sets.

Server
A server is an instance of DB2 Everyplace Sync Server that runs on a host and listens to a port. It synchronizes data between targets and mirror databases. Optionally, you can configure a server for replicating data between mirror and source databases.

Subscription
A specification for what information in a source database or server is to be replicated to a target database (the DB2 Everyplace database on the mobile device). Like a magazine subscription where you choose the types of information you want to see on a periodic basis, a subscription allows you to define which subsets of your enterprise's data and files the group members are allowed to access. Members can then access and synchronize just this subset of data and files, improving both security and performance. You can create two types of subscriptions: file subscriptions for files stored at the source server, and table subscriptions in the source database using either IBM DataPropagator or JDBC subscriptions.

Subscription set
A collection of subscriptions. To provide group members with access to the data and files defined in subscriptions, you collect the subscriptions together in a container called an subscription set, then assign this container object to the group. This two-step process of enabling members of a group to access the information that they need makes administration easier because you can bundle a set of subscriptions and assign that bundle to multiple groups if necessary.

When users start the synchronization client software on the device, they choose which subscription set to synchronize. The menu of subscription sets that appears on the client is created from the list of subscription sets associated with the user's group.

During a synchronization, if the client failed to synchronize a subscription successfully, it skips the remaining subscriptions in the same subscription set, and continues with the next subscription set.

Tip:
Group closely related subscriptions into a subscription set instead of randomly assigning different subscriptions to a subscription set. This can make troubleshooting easier if a subscription set fails to synchronize successfully.

Adapter
An adapter is used to synchronize and communicate with the Sync Server. A collection of adapters is included for synchronizing files, relational data with DB2, relational data with JDBC, and remote query and stored procedure functionality.

Log
After you implement mobile data synchronization, you can monitor any synchronization problems using the messages written to the log. Monitoring log activity is explained in Viewing the error log to diagnose problems.

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