How to NOT run a Multi-site Database

So they have a database thingy to track people and their 'stuff', licensing and whatnot. That's cool.

What's not cool is that I think they've made every mistake in the book:

• It's hosted at one central location
• in Denver.
• Colorado. Yeah.
• and all branch offices hit this one server
• in Denver
• running MS SQL
• and crashing repeatedly

So

• when there's no network interruption between here and denver
• which is over 5 networks, 2 mountains and one international border
• and when the server doesn't crash
• for 10 minutes at a fucking time
• then they can view, save and update records
• which is the sole fashion in which all records are heretofore kept

Yeah, really. MS SQL, for fuck's sake. If I was gonna have 109 branch offices all surfing the same lonely stretch of 'net to get to the same server, I would at least have set up something a bit more reliable. Hell, I think I coulda done a better job with fucking MySQL.

Which is free. And far more versatile and reliable.


But whatever. I mean, if I was setting it up,

• I'd fire the first dumbshit who suggested having everyone back-haul their data over 2 mountains, 5 different networks and one international boundary to access some flailing overpriced piece of last-decade shit database server during the few minutes it's actually able to server fucking requests.
• I'd get a $800 box and set it at the Head Office. With linux and an auto-update script, I wouldn't need to come back but for the quarterly maintainance trip.
• I'd go back and kick the dumbass I fired, but when no one was looking. Fucktards tend to sue.
  
• I'd then get another $600 box (hello cheapo walmart boxes) for each site, to be used as their central data storage, their print server, fax server, login server, backup server, net-booting host, and, oh yeah, their database replication point.
• Then I'd had the 4-5 machines at each location hitting that box to do their data updates over the fucking LAN, and have the changes propagated back to Head Office and out to other sites on change. It's so fucking basic I already did this just for fun with my home-NAT and mail server box. A monkey could do it.
• Then I'd egg the house of the dumbass, just in case he forgot who kicked him.
  

The resulting set-up would

• be replicated, which helps to
  
• automatically back-up the data at the head office
• locate the data near the point of use so it'd feel like a fucking million times faster
  
• survive network outages of up to a few days
• automatically just plain work.

It's amazing the kinds of people paid far too much by clueless organizations for half-assed solutions, eh?