Locations and Sites

Locations contain alternate host and path information for a captured store (a storage location for checked-in files). Sites are a set of locations.

  • Locations provide alternate host and path information for captured stores. They can only be added to existing captured store definitions.
  • A site, which is a set of locations, can be added to a person or group definition to specify location preferences. When associated with a person, the site defines the list of locations preferred by a particular person. When associated with a group, the site defines the list of locations preferred by all members of the group.

The host and path information in the store definition is considered to be the default location for the store, while any associated location objects identify alternate file servers. Think of a location as another store—it is defined as a UNC "location." The same rules apply as in specifying a store.

For more information about locations, see location Command and site Command.

The reason for introducing sites and locations is to enhance check-in, checkout, and open for view or edit performance for clients that require WAN access to a centralized storage location. The central store (“default”) is mirrored to one or more remote machines (“locations”). In this way, a client at the remote site has LAN access to the data.

When a user performs a file check-in, it is written to that user’s preferred location. If none is specified, the system writes the file to the store’s default path. In the schema, the business object is now marked as having a file checked in at this location. When another user requests the file for checkout, the system checks locations in this sequence to find the newest copy:

  1. Locations that are part of the checkout person’s preferred site.
  2. The store's default location.
  3. Any location that contains a valid copy of the file. This means that a “sync on demand” is performed—the requested file is copied to the user’s preferred location, and then the local file checkout is performed.

The files can be published to all locations associated with the store by running the MQL sync command against either the business object or the store. Following a synchronization, the files for a business object will be available in all locations. For more information, see Synchronizing Captured Stores.