INFO: Logging to Replicated Folders Is Not Recommended (262131)

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There are many types of log files that may get written to as your application executes. Your application itself may be writing to log files for auditing or testing purposes. There are also system log files written to by various Windows 2000 components. None of these log files should be stored in folders that are a part of any Internet Information Server (IIS) sites or other Application Center applications because they will cause frequent replication to occur when synchronization is enabled.

Examples of system log files, which are outside the scope of any log files that you are writing to as a part of your application logic, are the Microsoft Distributed Transaction Coordinator log file, IIS log files, and Web-Based Enterprise Management (WBEM) log files. The reasons to store these log files outside of your application/site folders are:

1. When you are using automatic synchronization within a cluster, any file that changes in a replicated folder on the controller is immediately written out to all members of the cluster that are in the replication loop. Log files are generally written to very frequently during normal application operations. Constantly replicating these files will put a large load on the cluster, which is not necessary.
2. These log files are usually computer (member) specific, and replicating these files from the controller to the other members may nullify the purpose of having the log files to begin with.

The following are the default locations of common system log files on Windows 2000: