Environment
Novell GroupWise 7
GroupWise Mobile Server, 2.03
Situation
A synchronization between a GroupWise and GMS works fine but after a restart of POA, there is a time gap till a synchronization starts to work again.
Resolution
A current synchronization mechanism between GroupWise and GMS is based upon few technologies. One of them is about registration of a GMS into a GroupWise POA which happens upon a startup of GMS. A GMS knows which POA it needs to contact and explain the POA what items need to be monitored for a change that are important for a GMS. This registration information are stored in a server memory allocated by the POA. This implies that once the POA is unloaded, the registration information is gone. When you load POA again, a GMS does not "re-register" itself automatically so the POA has no information that it needs to monitor anything and send it to a GMS.
There is, however, a sanitary check process happening each 30 minutes (by default) that is initiated by a GMS. Each 30 minutes a GMS server pools GroupWise site for updates which makes a registration in a POA server memory again. After this pool a sync process continue working as expected.
Novell has raised an enhancement request for Nokia to implement a heartbeat technology similar to one used in a cluster technology.