In an entry-balanced deployment, some data is replicated everywhere, such as the schema, the server registry, and other shared data, and some data is replicated only on certain servers. A replication domain contains all of the servers in a replicated topology and shares a schema. The replication domain is associated with the base DN and must be a base DN of a backend.

By default, replication propagates updates to all replication servers in the topology. Updates to data under the entry-balancing point, however, must be replicated only among server instances in the same data set. Replication requires that, in such deployments, the Directory Server is configured with a replication set name global configuration property, and two backends. One backend has a base DN that is replicated globally (such as dc=example,dc=com) and the second backend has a base DN associated with the entry-balancing point (such as ou=people,dc=example,dc=com).

If a data set name is not defined when you set up the Directory Proxy Server, one will be provided by default. The proper configuration of an entry-balancing environment requires coordination between the Directory Server and Directory Proxy Server. Once replication is enabled, the replication domain may be designated as the domain participating in entry balancing.

Review the Directory Server Administration Guide for more details about replication, managing the replication topology, and working with multiple backends.