>Hi All,
>
>I'm looking at having to implement an Oracle box as a data source for my VFP Data Warehousing applications. I need some basic info on what capabilities Oracle has for data replication.
>
>My situation would be a custom-built (as far as hardware) oracle server installed on my WAN, that would be storing data from 7 unix boxes that run a proprietary billing system. I have decided I do not want to use this Oracle server as the primary backend for my data warehousing applications, and instead just leave it function as a repository for the raw data I'll eventually use in my VFP apps.
>
>So I need to choose between the following options...
>A.) Develop application to extract only the data I need from the oracle repository box and store it on another machine that will become the backend for my apps (I need to process and normalize about 60% of the raw data for reporting and analysis tasks)
>
>B.) Just have the Oracle box replicate the raw data to my backend directly, and then build a typical 3 tier client server environment straight off of this second machine for my VFP apps. (What platform to use for this second machine is also open to my decision. I'm considering either VFP on NT 4.0, SQL Server, or maybe even Oracle)
>
>Any input or ideas on this will be greatly appreciated. (It's the season for budgets, planning, estimates, and all that other stuff that ruins a programmer's fun) :D) TIA!!!

Sounds like alot of extra work to me. Do the seven UNIX machines each have their own Oracle DB with their own billing system data that needs to be consolidated into 1 DB nightly?

In these days of WANS, T1/2/3 lines, etc., It does not much matter whether your server is in the next room or next country with respect to performance. If you have to have a distributed application, the routine to consolidate the data (accounting for new, updated and deleted records) will be hellacious.

I would analyze what the requirements are and develop a solution that minimizes the amount of distribution. This minimizes the risk of corruption and failures. I assume when you say you are going to replicate data from Oracle to your other server, that data will also flow back (as a "batch" transfer?) to the source on a regular basis as well.

Seems to me, if insert, modify, delete priveleges are the underlying reason for doing this, you could handle all this through the application as well as in Oracle. Or am I going down the wrong path for you?