Preparing a SQL Server database as a source

 

When replicating with SQL Server as the source database, the following prerequisites must be met:

  1. The version of SQL Server must be 2008 or later.

  2. The recovery model for the database must be Full.

  3. At least one full backup must have been performed prior to starting replication.  If a full backup has never been performed, the EP will stop and there will be errors in the log explaining what is wrong.
    Note: The backup must be done AFTER the recovery model has been set to Full or Bulk-logged.  If the recovery model is changed to Simple, it will need to be set back to Full or Bulk-logged and a new backup will need to be done prior to using the database as a replication source.

  4. The SQL Server User ID used to connect to the source SQL Server database must be a member of the sysadmin server role.

The following restrictions apply:

  1. The sum of all the fields in a table must be less than 8,000 bytes.

  2. BLOB/CLOB data types are not supported.  This includes TEXT, NTEXT, IMAGE, VARCHAR(MAX), etc.

  3. Computed columns have limited support.  

    • The index used for replication cannot be a computed column.

    • The source table can have computed columns but the target table cannot.

    • If a computed column is part of the replication, the data in the computed column will not be replicated.  In this case, the target column that the computed column is mapped to will receive nulls.