Don't change the recovery model, change the subscription experation

see this artical

http://www.sql-server-performance.com/2011/growth-distribution-database/

Ian did you check the relationship between the 2x domains

Just read Grant's artical is a good, straight to the point piece would highly reccomend it.

A colleague of mine wrote one, look at this http://www.enterprisedba.com/

I was thinking of becoming bilingual so asked one of our Oracle guys, he reccomended the following books as a starting point:

Oracle Database 11g DBA Handbook (Oracle Press) - Bob...

One more silly question, hopefully my last, but the SQL Server Services are starting ok with the domain accounts?

Find your actual weak point before investing any $, I would reccomend you look at these articals by Gail Shaw and Brent Ozar (they are both a good reads anyway)...

This really is a case of what works for the business you’re supporting, i've worked on assignments that do monthly, quarterly patching on pre defined dates and worked in environments...

Silly question I know, but are the 2x domains in the same forrest?

Also, is there a reason for using the same service account for both servers?

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms191295(v=sql.100).aspx, can't see replication causing anf additional complications

It does by default in SQL Server 2008, but it seems to reset the refresh interval to 10 secs after you close it

see if this helps

http://connect.microsoft.com/SQLServer/feedback/details/468478/sql-server-2008-periodically-does-not-accept-connections#

please post if you find the answer it seems like a problem for lots of people out there!

good luck

you should be able to achive this using a policy or a central management server

you should be able to create as many aliases as you like i've never seen any restricaition such as 1 per instance, unless we're not talikng about the same thing?

SCCM does this as good as anything, if no one in your server operations section wants to do it surely automation is the way forward?