Future releases of ADO.NET Data Services will provide a data replication and synchronisation feature that will enable data centric applications to work transparently in both online and offline modes. The project charged with implementing the replication and synchronisation features is known as "Astoria Offline" and has just reached its first Community Technical Preview (CTP).

While it's still early days for Astoria Offline, there is enough information around to get an idea of what Astoria will and won't offer to developers.

Pablo Castro's PDC 2008 talk provides a good introduction to Astoria Offline. Here Pablo (Astoria's Architect) not only talks about the technology, but also performs a live demonstration of the Visual Studio tooling that makes Astoria accessible to developers.

You can follow progress of the the Astoria Team on the Astoria Team Blog. This blog is part of their transparent design process in which they welcome community feedback during design and development stages of their projects.

The latest blog entry announces the Alpha CTP.