We have a SQL (2102) Replication Database with a Realtime DB being the Publisher and a Historical Db as the Subscriber. All of the Tables/Articles have the setting of Do Not Delete. Thereby the Realtime DB is maintained with a max data of say 2 weeks but the historical DB will just keep growing. We need to add a couple of tables/articles and have seen the mini-snapshot discussed and it does work fine. However I have come to a worrisome condition. If ever a snapshot is initialized, all of the history will be lost! Bad design I suppose. But is there a way to check to see if a publication is marked for initialization and a way to clear it?
Thanks!
Best Answer
Microsoft has some documentation on Initializing and Reinitializing Transactional Replication.
Initialize a Subscription with a Snapshot
Initialize a Transactional Subscription Without a Snapshot
Reinitialize Subscriptions
Snapshot Options
From your concern over lost data, you might want to investigate the Snapshot Options. Note this option: Specify an alternate snapshot folder location instead of or in addition to the default snapshot folder location.