Replication scenario question...Merge or Transactional?

The situation I am faced with is we have a web application supported by a SQL
2000(sp4) database that resides on a limited bandwidth network. Our
distributed users are constantly complaining of "slow" response times. Our
local users have no such complaints. Some of our leadership has suggested
sending a SQL server/IIS server to the remote location and using some type of
replication to synchronize the data between these boxes. The requirements
are for minimal latency and concurrent updating of data. The leadership also
want this solution to be completely automated (little or no supervision of
the replication process) and as with everything we do they want it right away
(we're talking days, not weeks). I am very new to replication and have read
through the BOL section and am in the process of reading Hillary Cotter's
book. I am leaning toward an implementation of Merge Replication but I am
unsure if this is the right solution. Any advice or informed opinions would
be greatly appreciated.
There is no concurrent replication option ie each solution will have a degree
of latency. If you use merge then you can select from a variety of conflict
resolvers and easily work offline. This might be your best option. There are
alternatives - queued updating subscribers, immediate updating subscribers
and bidirectional transactional replication. Do you have BLOBS in the table?
Are the subscribers always connected? Should they be able to continue if not
connected? These questions will clarify and narrow down the options a bit.
Whichever option you select, don't rush - you'll need time to configure it in
a test environment to establish a set of protocols (change management, error
handling...) and to simply verify that it all works for your situation.
HTH,
Paul Ibison
"Dave Stokes" wrote:

> The situation I am faced with is we have a web application supported by a SQL
> 2000(sp4) database that resides on a limited bandwidth network. Our
> distributed users are constantly complaining of "slow" response times. Our
> local users have no such complaints. Some of our leadership has suggested
> sending a SQL server/IIS server to the remote location and using some type of
> replication to synchronize the data between these boxes. The requirements
> are for minimal latency and concurrent updating of data. The leadership also
> want this solution to be completely automated (little or no supervision of
> the replication process) and as with everything we do they want it right away
> (we're talking days, not weeks). I am very new to replication and have read
> through the BOL section and am in the process of reading Hillary Cotter's
> book. I am leaning toward an implementation of Merge Replication but I am
> unsure if this is the right solution. Any advice or informed opinions would
> be greatly appreciated.