Backing up transactional replication databases

  • Our company uses transactional replication to "feed" several SQL Servers (2000 SP2) in the enterprise through push subscriptions. These servers are subscribing to one "main" SQL Server that acts both as a distributor and a publisher - all publications were created from the same db and all publications are partitioned vertically (not all fields and tables are published). The publication db is using the full recovery model while the distribution db is using simple.

    I backed up the publication db, master, model, msdb, distribution, and the publication db's log. I then issued DBCC SHRINKFILE commands on the publication db's data and log file. When replication was continued, the log reader agent flaked out. It's pointers were out of sync between the publication db and distribution. We had to recreate the entire replication environment to recover. Our backups are now on hold until this gets corrected.

    I can't seem to re-create this error in a test environment - even after purposely truncating the publication db's log and running more transactions.

    What did I do? What can I do to fix this? I've read about setting the distribution db's 'sync with backup' option to 'true' (We can't set this option on the publication db because of the effect on transaction latency).

    Thanks in advance!! (Sorry so long winded)

  • Shouldnt have affected anything. Sync with backup can definitely affect your latency. Alternate plan is to just restore the publisher if something goes wrong, then re-init the pub and send over a new snapshot. Brute force, but it works.

    Andy

    http://www.sqlservercentral.com/columnists/awarren/

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