We have a set of independent workstations we use for backup to our enterprise (Distributed Network). On the independent workstations I've duplicated RSLinx (and OPC topics), security, HMI tags from the distributed environment, maybe a few other things. On a regular basis I update these independent workstations.
I first duplicated then environment locally, then use my local application to push updates out to the independent workstations. To update my local application, I do an Add Component on the recently updated displays, Export those same displays from the distributed to .xml files and taking out the areas (I built a utility, but you can do it with notepad as well), then importing the XML into the local application. I test it out locally, and when everything is cleaned up, I push the local graphics out to the independent workstation.
I do a similar update with the FTAE alarms, export, remove the area, then import on the local application. I've not found a way to automatically update RSLinx enterprise or OPC topics, but those don't change very often for us anyway.
We have nine guys in our department making updates, so I've tried to automate this as much as possible, using VBA in Excel to do most of the manipulating.