A pull subscription is carried out when administrative focus is set on the subscription server. A subscription is created by "pulling" in a publication or an article from a publication server.
One advantage of using pull subscriptions is that they provide a degree of replication autonomy for a subscription server. The SA or DBO of the subscription server can decide which publications will be received. The subscriber avoids receiving unwanted data from a publication server. Another advantage is that for each subscription server, subscriptions from many publication servers can be set up during one administrative session.
With pull subscriptions, the act of publishing is separate from the act of subscribing, and the user administering the subscription server need not be the same person who administers the publication server.
For more information about push and pull subscriptions, see Chapter 14, Setting Up Replication.