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+++ b/Sphinx/source/users/replication.rst	Fri Apr 22 12:57:38 2016 +0200
@@ -0,0 +1,53 @@
+.. highlight:: bash
+.. _replication:
+
+Replication and upgrade
+=======================
+
+This page explains how to replicate the content of one instance of
+Orthanc to another instance of Orthanc. This is useful to **upgrade**
+between :ref:`versions of the database schema <db-versioning>`, or to
+create **mirrored DICOM servers**.
+
+Note that if you only want to automatically upgrade the database for
+successive versions of Orthanc, you most probably only have to add the
+``--upgrade`` command-line option while starting Orthanc.
+
+
+Direct access to the filesystem
+-------------------------------
+
+The most direct way to replicate consists in using the
+`ImportDicomFiles
+<https://bitbucket.org/sjodogne/orthanc/src/default/Resources/Samples/ImportDicomFiles/ImportDicomFiles.py>`_
+script of the Orthanc distribution. For instance, the following
+command would recursively explore the content of the ``OrthancStorage``
+folder (where Orthanc stores its DICOM files by default), and send
+each DICOM file inside this folder to the instance of Orthanc whose
+REST API is listening on ``http://192.168.0.2:8042``::
+
+    $ python ImportDicomFiles.py 192.168.0.2 8042 OrthancStorage
+
+This method will only succeed if:
+
+* The source Orthanc uses the default SQLite back-end of Orthanc (and
+  not the `PostgreSQL plugin
+  <http://www.orthanc-server.com/static.php?page=postgresql>`_, for
+  instance),
+* You have command-line access to the source Orthanc, and
+* The transparent :ref:`compression` of the DICOM instances is
+  disabled (cf. option ``StorageCompression`` in the
+  :ref:`configuration file <configuration>`).
+
+Generic replication
+-------------------
+
+If you cannot use the first method, you can use the `Replicate
+<https://bitbucket.org/sjodogne/orthanc/src/default/Resources/Samples/Python/Replicate.py>`_
+script of the Orthanc distribution. This script will use the REST API
+of both the source and target instances of Orthanc. For instance::
+
+    $ python Replicate.py http://orthanc:password@localhost:8042/ http://192.168.0.2/
+
+Obviously, contrarily to the first method, the source instance of
+Orthanc must be up and running during the replication.