Push or Pull

I've always had a hard time getting my head around Push and Pull
Subscriptions.
Ive read that it really doesnt have a huge impact on a box, and that what
really matters is where the Distributor is. That Push or Pull is more for
Administrative type of stuff. Just not sure about this.
I just started at a company that uses quite a bit of replication. So far Ive
come up with two Publishers and propably or 6 or 8 Subscribers. The
Distributors are both Local and the Subscriptions are all Pull. It is all
Transactional Replication, some of it continuos, some every 15 minutes.
So my questions are:
Would I be better off to use a dedicated Remote Distributor? One of my main
objectives here is to speed up these boxes.
If I did use a Remote Distributor, would it matter if I went to Push
Subscriptions for centralized Administration? Or would that defeat my goal
of speeding up the Publisher?
I don't like remote distributors and hesitate before using them. If your
remote distributor goes down you can end up with ballooning tlogs on your
publication databases and you can have problems getting your log reader
agent working again.
If you have high throughput and are experiencing locking you might want to
look at them.
Pull subscriptions do lessen the load on the publisher. They are the best
solution when you have a lot of subscribers, are replicating across the
internet or when your subscribers are not well connected or not always
connected, you can live with no central point of administration (other than
replication monitor group).
the rest of the answers are inline.
Hilary Cotter
Looking for a SQL Server replication book?
http://www.nwsu.com/0974973602.html
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"ChrisR" <noemail@.bla.com> wrote in message
news:%23ydW$eHNFHA.3668@.TK2MSFTNGP14.phx.gbl...
> I've always had a hard time getting my head around Push and Pull
> Subscriptions.
> Ive read that it really doesnt have a huge impact on a box, and that what
> really matters is where the Distributor is. That Push or Pull is more for
> Administrative type of stuff. Just not sure about this.
> I just started at a company that uses quite a bit of replication. So far
Ive
> come up with two Publishers and propably or 6 or 8 Subscribers. The
> Distributors are both Local and the Subscriptions are all Pull. It is all
> Transactional Replication, some of it continuos, some every 15 minutes.
> So my questions are:
> Would I be better off to use a dedicated Remote Distributor? One of my
main
> objectives here is to speed up these boxes.
I would only use this if you are experiencing considerable locking in your
distribution database.

> If I did use a Remote Distributor, would it matter if I went to Push
> Subscriptions for centralized Administration?
No, not for a few always connected subscribers.
Or would that defeat my goal
> of speeding up the Publisher?
Stop your log reader and distribution agent. Do you get a significant
increase in performance. If so, migrate; if not (and suspect not) stay with
the local distributor.
>