.NET Remoting for Occasionally Connected App - good fit?

Question

Our 70 mobile laptop users are struggling with a new version of an externally developed .NET application that downloads a subset of cases, allows offline data entry, then uploads the results when reconnected. Data transfer seems unreliable on both dialup and wired Ethernet links. Using .NET 2.0 SP1.

If you've used .NET Remoting, should it be a stable "good fit" here, so further debugging will yield a stable application? Or should we look in other directions, maybe Microsoft Sync Framework 2.0?

EDIT: Most important...although it's legacy...is .NET Remoting inherently stable and suitable enough so a good developer can make it do what we need reliably?

For this I need adequate more than than optimal--the alternative is changing planes in midair. (For inspiration, see Joel on Duct Tape Programming.)

Answer 1

I would definitely state away from any of the older .NET 1.1 communications technologies like .NET Remoting. Those frameworks have been officially deprecated as "legacy" by Microsoft (as of September 2009), and the recommended replacement is WCF. WCF can definitely do what you need it to do, and it being a web services platform, you shouldn't have a hard time implementing a stable offline environment for your laptop users.

However, if the MS Sync Framework 2.0 does what you need and makes it easy to use, I would go with that. It is a current technology platform from Microsoft, and it should be pretty solid.

Answer 2

For your described needs, the Sync Framework was built to help you out. A direct quote from the site:

A comprehensive synchronization platform that enables collaboration and offline access for applications, services, and devices with support for any data type, any data store, any transfer protocol, and any network topology.

This is quite frankly, your needs catered for. Here are a couple of links to help out:

Sync Framework Development Center

Sync 101 - Getting Started

Hope this helps.