Quoting Benja Fallenstein <address@hidden>:
+benja's reply:
+Hm. Replication to me means, the same data is kept on multiple
+machines. This is not what we are talking about here: We're talking
+about *different versions* of the same data being kept
+on multiple machines, and occasionally being 'brought into sync'
+with each other. If I send you a draft article and you comment on it,
+and I make changes too, and later I merge the two divergent
+versions back together, 'syncing' seems approximately right,
+but 'replication' seems completely wrong to me.
Hm ;).
When same data is kept on multiple machines, each instance is called replica
of data. When we merge different *versions* of replicas to same 'new version',
this operation is called replication.
<database, networking> Creating and maintaining a duplicate
copy of a database or file system on a different computer,
typically a server. The term usually implies the
intelligent copying of parts of the source database which have
changed since the last replication with the destination.
Replication may be one-way or two-way. Two-way replication is
much more complicated because of the possibility that a
replicated object may have been updated differently in the two
locations in which case some method is needed to reconcile the
different versions.
For example, Lotus Notes can automatically distribute
document databases across telecommunications networks. Notes
supports a wide range of network protocols including X25
and Internet TCP/IP.