Table of Contents

Editorial: Replication by Steve Jones

Protecting Your SQL Server Database with Continuous Data Protection by Jeremy Kadlec One of the newer technologies that builds on the ideas of log shipping and replication. This is a way that you can protect your data in real time, but offsite. An overview and a few companies that you might want to check out.
	Replication Security by Brian Kelley Security is a huge issue, but when setting up replication, it's not always something that is looked closely at. Security expert Brian Kelley brings us a look at some of the things that you should be looking at when configuring replication.
What's New for Replication in SQL Server 2005 by Vaqar Pirzada One of the SQL Server replication development team takes a few minutes to give us a look at the changes that are in store in SQL Server 2005. Replication hasn't gotten much press in the new product, but there are some amazing changes that many of you will be interested in deploying.
	Replication with SQL Server Express by Anthony Mann Not just a publisher, Tony Mann is also a SQL Server DBA and he knows a bit about the product. In line with the new book from Mann Publishing, Tony brings us a look at how SQL Server Express, the MsDE replacement, might fit into your replication scenarios.
NoSync Initializations by Paul Ibison SQL Server MVP Paul Ibison brings us a technique in which you might want to setup replication, but avoid the initial snapshot to synch the data. See if this works for you and if you can save some bandwidth on your WAN.
	Moving Replicated Databases by Any Warren Have you ever tried to move a replicated database? You can't. Instead you have to drop the replicated articles before you move the database and then add it back. Or do you? Andy Warren, with hundreds of replicated databases in his environment, brings us a technique that you can use to move those databases on the same server without removing replication.
Merge Replication Internals by Michael Hotek SQL Server MVP and Solid Quality Learning founder Michael Hotek brings us a look at the internal schema of how merge replication works.
	Replication at Work by Any Warren A followup to the March issue that examined Hancock Information Group in depth and how they use SQL Server in their environment. In this article, Andy talks about the replication environment, where hundreds of databases are replicated for a variety of reasons.
SQL Server Eye for the Oracle Guy by the John Kanagaraj A look at SQL Server from the standpoint of an Oracle DBA.

It's an interesting technology, the automatic movement of data from one system to another. When I first heard about replication I thought, “why”? Just query the other system and you don't have to worry about keeping things in synch, latencies, etc. That was many years ago and I was more concerned about the development side than I was anything else. As my career has advanced, especially with the growth of the Internet, it's really a great technology that can provide data protection, scalability, load balancing, off line environments, and more. I've used it to move heavily accessed read only data to other servers to handle large loads, to simulate a message queue system and migrate data between systems, and we are looking at it as a rollback strategy for SQLServerCentral.com. We're hoping to upgrade to SQL Server 2005, but to maintain a fall back strategy. The various parts of the site that change quite often would be replicated back to a SQL Server 2000 server in case we decided to undo the upgrade.

I'm sure that many of you have other creative and more interesting ways of using replication, so we've devoted an entire issue this month to that topic. We've got an inside look at the changes for SQL Server 2005 from Vaqar Pirzada of Microsoft. There have been quite a few improvements, so be sure to check that one out. Tony Mann of Mann Publishing, also looks at replication in SQL Server 2005 Express, and sure to check out the Mann Publishing offerings as they've been working on quite a few SQL Server 2005 publications.

We've also got not one, but two articles this month from SQL Server MVPs. Merge replication expert and Solid Quality Learning mentor Michael Hotek brings us a look at the internals of merge replication. We have Paul Ibison bringing us a practical method of up replication without stressing your network with an unnecessary snapshot initialization.

In March we looked at Hancock Information Group, publishing a series of articles as a detailed case study on how this company uses SQL Server. One of the things that we left out was their extensive use of replication. They replicate over 200 databases and Andy Warren brings us another practical article looking at how you can move a replicated database. It's not allowed in SQL Server 2000, but Andy gives us an easy way to make it happen.

Lastly, Jeremy Kadlec from Edgewood Solutions looks at the concept of continuous data protection (CDP). How can you ensure that your data is always safe and available? Replication is one of the ways, but Jeremy brings us a few things that you should consider, both technology and administratively related. This is an exciting new technology that has gotten a lot of press as of late.

This has been an interesting half year with the magazine and I really hope that you have enjoyed our focusing each issue on a single topic. The remainder of the year promises to be even more exciting as we get closer to the release of SQL Server 2005.

Steve Jones