About Incremental Change Synchronization

Incremental change synchronization is used within Microsoft Exchange Server for local replication. The collector and synchronizer that are shipped with Microsoft Exchange Server can be used to provide more general incremental change synchronization when used with an external agent.

Incremental change synchronization provides a mechanism to monitor and synchronize changes to an information store hierarchy or content. Changes may include the following:

• Creating a folder or a message This includes incoming messages and posted messages, as well as folder or subfolder creation.
• Modifying a folder or a message This includes moving of messages or updating of their contents.
• Deleting a folder or message

Incremental change synchronization may be used for several purposes:

• Retrieving changes Collecting the changes at one information store that have occurred within another information store.
• Synchronizing changes Collecting change information from one information store and duplicating it at another store, thereby maintaining a store replica.
• Replicating changes between two servers Keeping two or more information stores synchronized with one another while both are changing.

Two-way replication introduces additional complexity. To avoid looping conditions, each store is responsible for maintaining its state information.