Creating Publications

One or more publications can be created from each user database on a publication server. Publications cannot span databases: each publication can contain articles from only one database.

Before you create publications, you must set the server replication options as described in Configuring Servers for Replication, earlier in this chapter.

    To create a new publication

1. From the Server Manager window, select a publication server.
2. From the toolbar, choose the Manage Publications button. Or from the Manage menu, choose Replication, and then from the drop-down menu that appears, choose Publications.

   

   The Manage Publications dialog box appears.

   

3. Select a database, and then choose the New button.

   The Edit Publications dialog box appears.

   

4. In the Publication Title box, type a name for the new publication.

   A publication name must be unique for this database and conform to the rules for identifiers.

5. In the Description box, type a description of this publication.

   A description can be up to 255 characters.

6. Select a replication frequency.

   Replication frequency determines the basic method that will be used to replicate this publication.

   • Transaction based specifies that each transaction marked for replication will be read from the transaction log of the source database and applied to the destination databases.
   • Scheduled table refresh specifies that at scheduled intervals all articles in the publication will be refreshed. Each time refresh occurs, all data (and, optionally, the table schemas) will be applied to all destination tables. No data changes are sent between the scheduled refresh intervals. Transaction-based replication does not occur.
7. To specify the tables that will be published, select the Articles tab, select one or more tables from the Database Tables list, and choose the Add button.

   The tables are added to the Articles in Publication list.

   

8. To customize an individual table, select the Articles tab, select an article from the Articles in Publication list, choose the Edit button, and complete the Manage Articles dialog box that appears.

   You have a number of options for customizing an article. For each article, you can set the article name, article description, and destination name; exclude rows and columns from those published (horizontal and vertical partitioning); customize the synchronization schema script; and customize the data replication mechanism. For more information, see Defining Articles, later in this chapter.

9. When the article is defined, from the Manage Articles dialog box, choose OK.

   The Edit Publications dialog box returns.

10. To define the initial synchronization method and schedule, choose the Synchronization tab, and complete the Synchronization options.

    

    Initial synchronization determines the method by which the output data files are created for synchronization of the destination database. (This applies for both automatic and manual synchronization.) This can be bcp, native format (the default); or bcp, character format.

    The schedule determines how frequently automatic synchronization will be performed for new subscriptions. Since automatic synchronization of databases or even individual tables requires a fairly high amount of system overhead, using automatic synchronization on a scheduled basis allows you to set an interval between the time a server subscribes to a publication and is synchronized to that publication. This allows synchronization to be scheduled for a low-activity period on the publication and subscription servers.

11. To restrict replication to only selected servers, select the Security tab, choose the Restricted option, and from the list of servers, select those servers that are authorized to access this publication.

    A publication marked unrestricted is visible to and can be subscribed to by any subscription server. A publication marked restricted is visible only to those subscription servers that have been marked for access.

    

12. When the publication is defined, choose the Add button.

    The Manage Publications dialog box returns. The new publication and its articles are listed under the published database.

    

    Note that restricted publications have a key added to their icons.

13. To create additional publications, repeat steps 3 through 12.
14. When you finish creating publications, choose the Close button.