Merge replication and the Immediate-updating Subscribers option are key technologies supporting multisite update replication. In cases where transactional consistency is required, and immediate-updating Subscribers are not appropriate, it is sometimes feasible to extend transactional replication programmatically to support nonpartitioned, bidirectional topologies. Microsoft® SQL Server™ replication provides some tools and hooks, but there are significant restrictions, and substantial customization and programming is usually required.
A transactional, nonpartitioned, bidirectional solution can be developed using the following replication features:
For more information about how these features can be combined programmatically to build a nonpartitioned, bidirectional solution, see Implementing Nonpartitioned, Bidirectional, Transactional Replication.