SQL Server Performance Forum – Threads Archive

merge replication question

Our company needs to migrate all SQL data to new servers. These new servers are going to match the old ones completely and we are thinking of using merge replication to get the data onto the new servers and leave both old and new in action for a day or two to test and see if any issues w/applications arise on the new servers. After all seems to be well we’ll cut off the old servers to completely transfer all usage to new ones.
Does this seem reasonable? We can’t have any downtown really and we will use the subscriber for testing and gradually transfer users to the new server while both old and new servers are in action. thanx,
olga

I would not recommend this solution as there is too much effort required for setting up the replication. I would recommend restoring the database backup on new servers abd having regular transaction log backups for the new setup and apply the same to the old set up in case you need to roll back the change. Gaurav
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thank you for your fast response we thought about that but since we want to be able to work on databases located on both old and new servers at least for a couple of days and not lose any of the changes, we thought that merge replication is the only way to achieve that. are you saying we should set up log shipping from old->new and new->old to reflect the changes? is there a chance of losing any data and is there a way to handle conficts in this case? thanx again

When looking at merge replication there are quite a few things to consider like identity columns, timestamp columns, text and image columns etc. Take a look in BOL in the section named "Planning for Merge Replication" for more details. Not every database or application will work out of the box with merge replication. /Argyle

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