Viewing Replication Tasks and the Task History

When you use SQL Enterprise Manager to set up replication, it automatically creates the replication tasks that are required. You can view a list of all scheduled tasks, a list of tasks that are currently running, and a history for each replication task.

    To view the task list and the task queue

1. From the Server Manager window, select a server.

   This is the server for which tasks will be viewed.

2. Under the selected server, double-click the Executive icon.

   

   Or from the toolbar, choose the Set Schedules button.

   

   The Task Scheduling window appears.

   

3. To view a list of existing tasks (both scheduled and disabled) for this server, select the Task List tab. The following information is displayed:
   • Task is the task name.
   • Owner is the task owner (usually the task creator).
   • Type is the type of task. CmdExec is an operating system command or executable file. TSQL is a Transact-SQL statement. Distribution, LogReader, and Sync are replication tasks.
   • Frequency is the task's schedule type: Recurring, One Time, or On Demand. (An on-demand task is run by an alert when the alert occurs).
   • Last Run Date is the day the task last ran.
   • Last Run Time is time of day the task last ran.
   • Enabled tells you whether the task is enabled or disabled.
4. To view a list of the tasks that are currently running, choose the Running Tasks tab. The following information is displayed:
   • Task is the task name.
   • Owner is the task owner (usually the task creator).
   • Type is the type of task. CmdExec is an operating system command or executable file. TSQL is a Transact-SQL statement. Distribution, LogReader, and Sync are replication tasks.
   • Start Date is the first day on which the recurring task will be executed.
   • Status displays status information about the task.

   Note Queued tasks are also shown in the Running Tasks tab. For subsystems (task type) other than TSQL, a task may be queued if it is scheduled to run but there are no free threads available in the subsystem. The maximum number of threads available to a subsystem can be changed using regedt32. The default for all subsystems (except TSQL) is 10.

5. To update the display with current information, choose the Refresh button.

   

You can view a task's history, which provides information about the last run date of a task, the time and duration of the last run, the status of that run, and whether a user was sent e-mail by SQL Executive. You can also view any messages sent by SQL Executive.

    To view the history of a replication task

1. From the Server Manager window, select a server.

   This is the server for which task history will be viewed.

2. Under the selected server, double-click the Executive icon.

   

   Or from the toolbar, choose the Set Schedules button.

   

   The Task Scheduling window appears.

   

3. From the Task List, select the replication task to view history for.

   Replication tasks have an entry in the Type column of Distribution, LogReader, or Sync.

4. Choose the Task History button.

   

   The Task History dialog box appears.

   

   The following information is displayed:

   • Run Date shows the date the information is about.
   • Run Time shows when the task ran.
   • Status shows whether the task completed successfully.
   • E-mailed indicates whether e-mail was sent by SQL Executive after task execution.
   • Run Duration shows the amount of time the task took to run. For this release, the value will always be zero.
   • Message displays any messages that resulted from the task execution.

     If selected for preservation in the Windows NT Event (application) log, success and failure messages can also be viewed using the Windows NT Event Viewer. This avoids the 256-character truncation that will occur when viewing task history.

   • Clear All clears (erases) the history.

For more information about replication tasks, see Chapter 16, Scheduling Tasks.