Laptop Sync / offline-file sync Alternatives?

[scotty]

Hi everyone,

Just want to pick your guys' brains, anyone here who's worked in a SMB / Windows server environment.

I'm currently working with a company of about 120 users in a fairly straight forward Windows Server / AD environment. The environment is primarily desktops, but we do have about 2 dozen laptop users, half of which are primarily in-house staff, and half of which work internationally and travel a lot.

Currently, under previous IT management, there's no synchronization of laptops (or desktops) with any of the servers. Laptop users have a lot of important files on their systems which we would like sync'd or backed up to the servers on a fairly regular basis. Most people know to work out of the common network drives, but we still have lots of people who store files in local locations (i.e. My Documents).

We've been performing a trial of Windows' built-in folder redirection and offline-file syncing, but it's very painful. There's lots of little gotchas and error messages, and basically is not very graceful. It's pretty easy to set up (i.e. pushing via. GPO), but that's about it.

Does anyone have any suggestions for a relatively easy to deploy, fairly-straight forward silent way of having laptops syncing with servers? Ideally, it would be nice to have this push 'silently', and not have to mess too much with each individual laptop or PC. Does anyone know of any good software (i.e. rsync) that we can deploy for this? We're trying to move to a more managed desktop environment and ideally if a laptop suddenly dies (or gets lost, stolen, etc), we'd like to replace it on the fly very quickly, not having to worry about what was on it.

Just looking for general insight / suggestions.

 

[Osamede]

The MS SyncToy 2.0 is quite good. Have you considered using it?
1) Set Synctoy 2.0 to synchronise specific local folders to network folders
2) Automate the synchronisation through task scheduling (see link):
http://www.lagesse.org/using-microsoft-synctoy-2-with-freenas/

 

[scotty]

Thanks for the tip. I have actually considered using synctoy - I actually use synctoy at home for syncing to a NAS/server. Overall, I have no complaints. My only issue with it comes with scalability, deploying it and maintaining it on 2 dozen laptops is not pretty. I tried to do this and fiddled quite a bit with it, but the bottom line is that the program just isn't made for that kind of portability.

There's lots of really good snycing programs out there (I've been using FolderShare for quite some time as well), but none of them are really appropriate for business (i.e. easily deployable & maintainable, run in the background without much/any intervention, etc).

Microsoft's built-in 'Offline Files' functionality is theoretically the magic bullet, the only issue (as noted in the OP) is that it's old, painful, and very error-prone.

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

I share your pain Scotty....the holy grail of keeping My Docs of the road warriors backed up is elusive. Offline files is clunky, Microsofts revamped briefcase (Sync) isn't the smoothest either.

I've yet to stumble across a good managed solution, it seems we'll still be stuck with having to visit/touch/manage each individual laptop, or resort to some very clunky XCopy command that we stick in the users login script, which runs as soon as they log in. But then they curse it because they're in a rush or need to get to work right away, or log in through a VPN tunnel and get stuck for hours.

One that I'm about to tinker with....AllwaySync
http://allwaysync.com/index.html

 

[claykin]

Have you looked at Jungledisk? I'd consider cloud backup for the users who travel and may call one day asking if the data they saved last night can be retrieved... Jungledisk is rock solid and scalable. You can even integrate with your Windows Server and sync data back to it if you so desire...

 

[Osamede]

That is more or less how I settled on SyncToy 2.0 myself. Tested the built-in windows tool in Vista and Synctoy and the former was surprisngly inferior to the manual tool.

I wouldnt shy away from manual tools. Its incredibly simple to have the one button and hit sync when you start up or close down the computer. Because it is incremental its pretty fast.

At some point technology cant solve everything. if the manual tool is the best tool then I'd say go for it. An decent professional should have the discipline to do simple stuff like this and IMO if they cant they will find a way to screw up or complain about even automated solns too.

 

[scotty]

I'm not inherently opposed to manual syncing tools themselves, the issue is like anything else in larger networks - automation. I can't go around to 50-some laptops and another 80-some desktops installing and tweaking software. It has to be automated pretty much 100% to the point where users log in, and the mothership pushes everything silently to the desktop. I'm trying to move to a complete automated, managed desktop.

I set this up at my last company, and it's one of the best things you can do in a larger environment. When I needed to set up a new desktop for someone, all I would do is image it over PXE, log in as the user and walk away, and within about 1/2 an hour the desktop was 100% ready for the user with all of their mail, files, and personalized settings. No setup screens, no wizards -fully ready. I'm converting my current office into this system and about 90% of the way there, the only thing that remains is users' files (i.e. My Documents from there old machine) and Lotus Notes crap. Hence some sort of Laptop/Desktop sync is pretty important to said process. And it would be nice to have this happen automatically.

As stonecat says, there just isn't a holy grail in this area. You're basically stuck doing xcopy or some clunky script. I'm getting close to having to revert to that. The only other options are a) Go with Windows' Offline Folder syncing and accept the pain (and helpdesk calls); or b) Heavily force users to not save locally and always use the VPN 24/7 when working remotely. I was just seeing if anyone here had used any programs that worked well in this context.

Never hard of jungledisk, I'll give it a look. Thanks for the suggestions so far.