How is using ActivePatch different from data compression?
Compression reduces the overall size of the file. However, it includes all of the data in the file. ActivePatch analyzes the original version of a file and the updated version, and only includes the data that has changed. For example, consider a Microsoft Access database which is approximately two megabytes in size. A user changes several records in the database and those changes then need to be sent to another user at a remote location. Compressing the database would result in a file that would probably be around 500-700K in size. However, because ActivePatch analyzes the differences between the original version and the updated version, that same update could be as small as 5K in size.
