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SQL2000 Snapshot agent - difference between Transactional and Merge RRS feed

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    Hi,

    I created a transactional replication and a merge replication in SQL2000, by using the Create New Publication Wizard, and I didn't customize any properties. Both are push subscriptions and the distribution/merge agents run continuously.

    One thing I don't understand, is the difference between the snapshot agents of transactional and merge created by wizard. The snapshot agent of transactional scheduled to run once per day; but that of merge is once per week.
    Another difference I found is the snapshot agent of transactional never run, agent history just shows "snapshot was not generated because no subscriptions needed intialization"; but that of merge really runs once per week and generates snapshot.

    As I know, snapshot is only for initializing subscription database, no matter its transactional or merge.
    Anybody can tell me why Microsoft makes such differences?

    Tuesday, June 15, 2010 9:21 AM

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    They are different in that they need to create snapshots for different objects - for merge replication there are a lot of metadata tables and objects which have to be also snapshotted.

    The transactional replication snapshot is kept up to date for rapid deployments - it will only run if a new snapshot is required.

    For merge replication the snapshot does not do the change tracking that transactional snapshot agents do and because of this the snapshot is only generated each week - if a snapshot is required.

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    • Proposed as answer by nonno Thursday, June 17, 2010 2:14 AM
    • Marked as answer by Xiao-Min Tan – MSFT Thursday, July 1, 2010 1:40 AM
    Tuesday, June 15, 2010 12:00 PM
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