Newbie replication Vs mirroring question

  • We have a vendor developed product that is transaction intesinve.

    They have canned reports that we would like to implement. These

    reports can be run off an "archived" db or current db. I am looking into

    db replication/mirroring the live db and run the reports of this. The

    latest data reports can have can be as of yesterday.

    The db is set in simple mode. This is sqlserver 2000 on windows 2003.

    what is an optimum solution: I am new to mirroring and replication also.

    Thanks

  • Mirroring is not an option to offload reporting. The mirror db is in an offline status.

    Log shipping is a possible solution, since the db can be left in a standby or read only status - however each time a log is delivered all user conns are killed.

    Transactional replication is a perfect option for this.

    Regards,

    ChrisB MCDBA

    MSSQLConsulting.com

    Chris Becker bcsdata.net

  • Thanks chris,

    Was thinking on the same lines. Also did not see mirroring as an option for SQL2000. This is available in 2005. I could update the subscriber nightly. As I said reporting could be a day off which is fine.

    Anything I need to check on performance/etc... Tips as I am starting on a clean slate.

  • You're right - mirroring not an option in 2000.

    I would look at using a dedicated distributor server since your vendor app is transaction intensive.

    You have a choice to go with snapshot or transactional replication. Read books online about the two. Even though your subscriber can have day old data I would implement transactional personally and you get the benefit of latency being in the seconds if you leave your log reader & distribution agent running continuously. Or you can run your agents to deliver changes hourly/nightly. Keep in mind with transactional you cannot truncate your db log until log reader picks up commands to be replicated.

    Do not consider merge replication, this will add a column (rowguid) to each replicated table - not good when app is not yours...

    Snapshot will deliver entire tables each time it is ran, where transactional will only deliver changes.

    ChrisB

    MSSQLConsulting.com

    Chris Becker bcsdata.net

  • The db is set in simple mode: We do not want to hog resources by hourly updates. Most probably: snapshot nightly should do. As the apps is transaction intensive, cannot have large logs just waiting to be updated...

    -c

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