Traditional & Branch Versioning in the same database

[Anonymous User]

Can we use both Traditional & Branch Versioning in the same enterprise database? I think the answer is yes, but I wonder how Reconcile/Posting would work. If you Reconcile/Post through a database connections would that only work for the Traditional features, and then Reconcile/Post through the service would only work for the Branch features? There wouldn't be any kind of conflict?

Also, since Replication doesn't work with Branch Versioning, has anyone found a good way to synchronize a Branched Versioned dataset to another enterprise database?

[George_Thompson]

Yes, Branch and Traditional versioning can be used in the same enterprise geodatabase. The features classes can only participate in one or the other, NOT both.

You would reconcile / post as normal, there would not be any conflict as they do not share feature classes that participate.

As for the replication, you can edit the branch versioned data via the web as it is a service based architecture (Web GIS). Is there a reason that you would need to replicate with this model?

Here are some great blogs to review:

https://www.esri.com/arcgis-blog/products/arcgis-enterprise/data-management/to-branch-or-not-to-bran...

https://www.esri.com/arcgis-blog/products/arcgis-enterprise/data-management/branch-versioning-settin...

https://www.esri.com/arcgis-blog/products/arcgis-pro/data-management/version-administrator-for-branc...

https://community.esri.com/t5/geodatabase-questions/blog-discussion-branch-versioning/td-p/835462

Let us know if you have any other questions.

[Anonymous User]

Ok, thank you for confirming the versioning scenarios. 

We want to replicate our data because we are creating a dev environment to run along side our production environment.  Running both traditional and branching versioning isn't an issue, except that we want to replicate our Water UN. Which it seems like won't be possible.

[George_Thompson]

Many people just use DB backup /  restore to "refresh" data in DEV from PROD.

You should be able to use branch versioning to edit / "share" your UN data.

[Anonymous User]

We want to Replicate our UN data onto a different database in order to test our new workflows and troubleshoot, not just simply sharing. We need to keep these databases separate but in sync.

It would be very useful to be able to replicate branch versioned data.

[DanMoore]

At this time, geodatabase replication is not supported for branch versioned data.

https://pro.arcgis.com/en/pro-app/latest/help/data/geodatabases/overview/replication-and-geodatabase...

One option that has been mentioned would be to utilize a distributed collaboration - https://www.esri.com/arcgis-blog/products/arcgis-enterprise/sharing-collaboration/dev-summit-2021-us...

[Anonymous User]

We currently use a Distributed Collaboration for other things. Unfortunately, even a one way sync seems to only be able to store the data in a data store. We are trying to build a complete dev environment, which means housing the dev data in an enterprise db. 

So it seems to only way to create a 'replica' environment would be to export any branch versioned features to the dev environment. Which is a time intensive process.

[Sarah_of_Lubbock]

I'm in the same situation.  
I would like our Dev environment to be in sync with our daily data.
Is there a good solution to this?

[MarceloMarques]

You can use RDMBS replication technology - Oracle Golden Gate, Oracle Data Guard, SQL Server Always On, PostreSQL Slony, then you can keep the dev in sync with prod, but do you really want that? you could simply restore a database backup of prod into dev every week or so, your database administrator can help choose the best solution and even automate the process.

[MarceloMarques]

You can use RDMBS replication technology - Oracle Golden Gate, Oracle Data Guard, SQL Server Always On, PostreSQL Slony, then you can keep the dev in sync with prod, but do you really want that? you could simply restore a database backup of prod into dev every week or so, your database administrator can help choose the best solution and even automate the process.