Brian,

I know merge replication uses it to establish if another merge process is running for a particular subscription. The call within sp_getApplock had the following parameters.

0,

@dbid = <the ID of...

Tables like MSMerge_History and MSMerge_Genhistory should already have indexes on them. As the document in my previous post mentions it is a good idea to re-index the MSMerge_ tables....

It is actually recommended if you are having issues with performance. You may want to review the msdn document Enhancing Merge Replication Performance. http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa237440(sql.80,printer).aspx

I am surprised the SAN team was not aware of the cache failure. Regardless you may want to look into the configuration on the controller / LUN and consider how...