June 19, 2009 at 1:21 pm
🙂
Happy Friday!
If we setup replication between a production and test database server,
and the test database server's date is routinely changed (for web app
testing purposes), would this mess up transactional or snapshot
replication of data? Both the replication publisher and the
distributor would be on the production database server.
We have a production and a test database server configuration, both
running Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Standard.
For user acceptance testing purposes, we frequently change the date on
the test database server to mimic the passage of time. For example,
testers make a change to our web application, then a server admin
changes the server date to test web app functionality in the future.
After a period of time, the date is returned to the current date. Both
servers reside in the same data center, so normally their dates and
times are the same.
It seems like a weird situation, but I am thinking (hoping) this might
not be a big deal. For example, replication normally occurs between
servers in different time zones, or possibly even between days if they
are on separate continents. Of course, in those situations the
difference in dates and times remains consistent over time.
I am hoping to get confirmation regarding whether we might expect
problems if we set up replication and then change the date on the
subscriber (replicated) database, and then return it to the current
date. What would happen from the subscriber and publisher/distributor
points-of-view?
Thanks in advance for any help.
June 21, 2009 at 10:47 pm
Transactional Replication does not use the date/time to manage the data that is being replicated. When you consider exactly the sort of scenarios that you have (with servers in different locations/continents) it is not realistic to expect the clocks on the different servers to be in sync with each other. Replication was designed with that in mind and it relies on a sequence number to determine what has been replicated.
For snapshot replication, everything gets replicated so there is no need to even consider the date/time on the servers.
You may get some minor issues with the replication agents because of the changes in date/time. This is simply because you may choose to change the time so that the next schedule execution of the SQL Agent Job that implements the replication agent does not run or perhaps runs more often than expected. This will not have a negative affect on replication - it will continue to replicate whatever is waiting to be replicated. It may simply mean that any delays that should (or shouldn't) be experienced (because of the way you configured replication) may be different.
June 22, 2009 at 8:18 am
😎
Thanks!
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