Hmm. If the tables are that large, then you have a problem anyway. No matter how you arrange to do the comparison, it still requires that at least one copy of the table be tranmitted between each pair of machines in order for the comparison to take place.

Having transmitted that data, a blanket replacement will always be quicker than a compare. The time spent locked whilst transmitting remains a constant and the time spent locked replacing will pale into insignificance relative to the time spent comparing.

If the tables are this large and dynamic (from what the OP said, his seemed to be relatively small & static), then you would obviously need to use some kind of dynamic replication or true distributed updates, but that is quite a different situation and a considerably more involved undertaking than sync'ing a few, small, relatively static reference tables, which was my interpretation of the OP situation.

Maintaining multiple copies of large dynamic tables in a distributed DB environment is the current holy grail of RDMBS development, still a proprietary black art for the most part, and hardly the sane subject of a "quick perl script" to undertake.

Examine what is said, not who speaks -- Silence betokens consent -- Love the truth but pardon error.
Lingua non convalesco, consenesco et abolesco. -- Rule 1 has a caveat! -- Who broke the cabal?
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In reply to Re^3: Comparing tables over multiple servers by BrowserUk
in thread Comparing tables over multiple servers by mnlight

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