Being a great DBA means knowing more than just SQL Server

Sometimes a project comes around that requires knowledge beyond the normal SQL Server knowledge. This is where having the extra knowledge can really make you standout.  Recently I was talking to Allen Kinsel (blog | twitter) about IPv6 on a Windows Cluster which was being blocked by Symantic which was causing all sorts of problem.

I then mentioned that this would create all sorts of productions for Direct Access as it requires IPv6 to function.  Which let to a quick back and forth about what Direct Access was and how it worked.  Suddenly Wendy Pastrick (blog | twitter) comes into the conversation asking specifically about Direct Access.  Apparently she has a new client which has many remote SQL instances installed on peoples laptops and those laptop use merge replication to sync up data with the central database.  This is a perfect situation for Direct Access to be deployed.

What’s Direct Access?

Direct Access is a feature of Windows 2008 R2 and Windows 7 where the client computers can create an automatic SSL protected connection to the company network on demand without the user needing to initiate the connection.

How can it help?

The current solution that the company has to deploy requires that the user initiate a VPN connection then the user would need to start the SQL Replication job to begin the data transfer (or have the distribution agent setup to try over and over until it succeeds).  Using Direct Access when the SQL Server attempts to connect to the distributor (I’m assuming a pull subscription here) the computer will see the attempt to request access to an internal server, so it’ll then connect to the direct access server effectively making a VPN connection, which would then allow the data transfer to complete without the user even knowing that the connection was needed.

Obviously Direct Access isn’t a feature that most DBAs would know about.  Now that you know about this feature you can pitch it if you are in the need for a distributed merge replication solution that will allow for automatic replication of data without the remote user knowing that the replication needs to take place.

Denny

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