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Originally published at Internet.comBy Laura Jones, Mark Spenik, and Orryn Sledge
This article is provided courtesy of Sams Publishing.
For additional information see the authors' book, Microsoft SQL Server 2000 DBA Survival Guide.
Data Replication is a powerful feature of SQL Server. SQL Server 7.0 provided many improvements from previous versions, and SQL Server 2000 builds on those features and adds more to increase the reliability, ease of use, and management of replication. NOTE
Replication ships with the standard product. Several other RDBMS vendors treat replication as a separate product for which you pay extra.
In a nutshell, replication is the capability to reliably duplicate data from a source database to one or more destination databases. Using Microsoft SQL Server replication, you can automatically distribute data from one SQL Server to many different SQL Servers through ODBC (Open Database Connectivity) or OLE DB. SQL Server 2000 enables you to replicate to non-SQL Server subscribers (heterogeneous subscribers), such as Microsoft Access or Oracle, using ODBC or OLE DB and enables support for Internet anonymous subscribers. SQL Server replication provides update replication capabilities such as Immediate Updating Subscribers and merge replication. With all the new enhancements to SQL Server replication, the number of possible applications and business scenarios is mind-boggling. In Chapters 28, "Transactional Replication," and 29, "Merge Replication," of our book, Microsoft SQL Server 2000 DBA Survival Guide , you can examine the different types of replication in detail as well as appropriate and inappropriate applications for each type. However, for starters here are some examples of applications or scenarios in which SQL Server replication can be used: * To distribute the workload across servers (such as moving an ad-hoc query and reporting capability from a source server). * To move specific subsets of data (such as a company department or one month's worth of data) from a main central server. * When you have a central database that is updated and the updates must be moved out to other databases (such as a department store changing prices for an item). * Account management/tracking applications used by salesmen or field reps using laptops in a disconnected mode that later replicate changes to a central internal server. * A Web-based user group or subscription application that can periodically pull down database changes via the Web. * Environments in which servers are importing flat-file information. Use a central database to import the flat file and replicate the information to the other sites.
Replication and Microsoft SQL Server 2000
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