Microsoft® SQL Server® 2012 Bible

727

CHAPTER

28

Replicating Data

IN THIS CHAPTER

Understanding Replication Concepts

Confi guring Replication

R

eplication is a native group of technologies in SQL Server 2012 that you can use to copy and

distribute database objects and data from one database to another. In addition, replication

synchronizes the databases to maintain consistency.

You can use replication for many purposes, listed here in order from most popular to rarely used:

■ (^) Offl oading reporting from an OLTP server to a reporting server.
■ Data consolidation; for example, consolidating branch offi ce data to a central server.
■ (^) Data distribution; for example, distributing data from a central server to a set of member
servers to improve read performance.
■ (^) Disaster recovery — replication can be used to keep a DR (disaster recovery) server syn-
chronized with the main server, and clients can be manually redirected to the DR with
minimual interruption.
■ Synchronizing data with a central server and a mobile sales force.
■ (^) Synchronizing data with handheld devices (such as PDAs and smartphones).
You can make replication processes highly scalable, which typically can synchronize data between
servers or databases with acceptable latency. Latency refl ects the lag of time between when data is
sent (replicated) from the source server and received at the destination server.

Moving Data Between Servers

Replication is not the only way to move data between servers. Following are several alternatives,

each with its own pros and cons:

■ (^) bcp utility
■ SSIS
■ (^) Distributed transactions
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