>>>We want to set up 3 different servers with MSDE and sync them using replication. Using merge replication, is it possible to have changes distributed from all 3 servers. I guess what we are asking is if it is possible for MSDE to be both a subscriber and a publisher.
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>>Don't know if you can do that with MSDE or not, but you can with SQL Server. Even then, it didn't work very well, and if you get out of sync, it's a royal mess to try to get synched back up. We gave up on letting SQL do it, it was just too fragile.
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>I have merge replication working between two servers over a WAN without too many problems. As Fred pointed out, the initial snapshot is a problem and the built-in tools are insufficient. I think depending on your requirements and with enough 3rd-party tools, you can get it to work well enough for many situations. red-gate.com has some tools to validate and "fix" replication when SQL Server messes it up. The major complaint I have is that SQL Server doesn't seem very good at detecting when things get out of sync.

Our situation would be at least 3 servers involved, possibly more. Our connection between 2 of the locations would be 6 T1 lines bundled together as a single pipe, and then those 2 locations connected to the third by at least a single T1 each. We'll look into red-gate, but I still think the whole process was too fragile as we couldn't get reliable functionality in the same rack and light testing, let alone over the WAN. I don't think the experience would have been very pleasurable with about 500+ workstations hitting the tables over the 3 sites. A single hiccup would have been disasterous as the snapshot times would be horrendous, along with the bloat due to the requirement of GUIDs. We're still investigating other options.