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Editorial Team
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Asked: 2026-05-28T20:15:07+00:00

So I have, what would seem like a common question that I can’t seem

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So I have, what would seem like a common question that I can’t seem to find an answer to. I’m trying to find what is the “best practice” for how to architect a database that maintains data locally, then syncs that data to a remote database that is shared between many clients. To make things more clear, this remote database would have many clients that use it.

For example, if I had a desktop application that stored to-do lists (in SQL) that had individual items. Then I want to be able to send that data to a web-service that had a “master” copy of all the different clients information. I’m not worried about syncing problems as much as I am just trying to think through actual architecture of the client’s tables and the web-services tables

Here’s an example of how I was thinking about it:

Client Database

list
--list_client_id (primary key, auto-increment)
--list_name

list_item
--list_item_client_id (primary key, auto-increment)
--list_id
--list_item_text

Web Based Master Database (Shared between many clients)

list
--list_master_id
--list_client_id (primary key, auto-increment)
--list_name
--user_id


list_item
--list_item_master_id (primary key, auto-increment)
--list_item_remote_id
--list_id
--list_item_text
--user_id

The idea would be that the client can create todo lists with items, and sync this with the web service at any given time (i.e. if they lose data connectivity, and aren’t able to send the information until later, nothing will get out of order). The web service would record the records with the clients id’s as just extra fields.
That way, the client can say “update list number 4 with a new name” and the server takes this to mean “update user 12’s list number 4 with a new name”.

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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    I think they general concept you’re working with is the right direction, but you may need to pay careful attention to the use of auto-increment columns. For example, auto-increment on the server is useless if the client is the owner of this ID. Instead, you probably want list.list_master_id to be an auto-increment. Everything else you’ve mentioned is entirely plausible, though the complexity may increase if there may be multiple clients per user. Then, the use of an auto-increment alone probably isn’t sufficient. Instead, you may need a guid or a datatype that also includes a client identifier to prevent id collision.

    Without having more details it would be difficult to speculate on what other situations you may need to consider.

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