Alternate Synchronization Partners

Subscribers to merge publications can synchronize with servers other than the Publisher at which the subscription originated. Synchronizing with alternate partners provides the ability for a Subscriber to synchronize data even if the primary Publisher is unavailable. This feature is also useful when mobile Subscribers have access to a faster or more reliable network connection with an alternate synchronization partner.

The following are requirements when using alternate synchronization partners:

• The feature is available only with merge replication.
• When using automatic identity range handling, a Subscriber must synchronize with its primary Publisher to receive a new identity range.
• To avoid subscription expiration, a Subscriber must synchronize with its primary Publisher within the retention period of the publication. For example, if the publication retention period is 14 days (the default), a Subscriber must synchronize with its primary Publisher at least every 14 days; all other synchronizations can be performed with an alternate synchronization partner.
• The alternate synchronization partner must have the data and schema required by the subscription.
• We recommend that the publication created on the alternate server be a clone of the publication created on the original Publisher.

The following procedures and parameters are relevant for alternate synchronization partners:

• The @allow_synctoalternate parameter of sp_addmergepublication (Transact-SQL)
• sp_addmergealternatepublisher (Transact-SQL) and sp_dropmergealternatepublisher (Transact-SQL)
• The –SyncToAlternate parameter of the Replication Merge Agent

See Also

Concepts

Deprecated Features in SQL Server 2005 Replication

Help and Information

Getting SQL Server 2005 Assistance