Understanding update transfers

In an update transfer, a vault transfers documents that it owns to other enlisted vaults. The GCF keeps a record of when an update of a document was last sent to another vault, and will only include a document when the destination vault needs to be updated due to changes at the owning site. Also, the document content is not transferred to the destination site unless the content has been changed.

Note    Prior to version 2011, the GCF detected changed documents using the document's Modification Time property and a custom property. Beginning with version 2011, the GCF uses an invisible internal property that is maintained by the Meridian Enterprise server. This property is updated whenever a change is made to any other (visible or invisible) property. This can happen when a reference is added, another site is enlisted, the document is locked/unlocked, redlines are added, the thumbnail is refreshed, and so on. This can result in documents being synchronized to collaborating sites more than expected in prior versions of the GCF and should be considered during implementation planning. Also consider any effects of customizing the DocGenericEvent_OnProperties event in the vault's configuration, which can also cause unexpected synchronization.

The following steps are performed:

1. Export updates: The Meridian Enterprise export processor (running as a Windows scheduled task) checks all documents in the vault for which other vaults are enlisted. The date and time of the last property change to any of the documents is compared to the last recorded transfer dates in a Meridian Enterprise table. For documents that have been changed since the last transfer, the Meridian Enterprise export processor creates a briefcase and exports the document data into the briefcase as shown in the following figure.

2. WAN transfer: The GCF transfer processor transfers the briefcases to each collaborating vault across the WAN using the configured protocol.
3. Import: At the collaborating sites, the Meridian Enterprise import processor (also running as a Windows scheduled task) detects the received briefcase and imports the updates into the local vault.