Heterogeneous Publishers

Microsoft® SQL Server™ 2000 can subscribe to snapshot or transactional data published from Oracle, DB2, Access, and other data sources. This allows organizations that are planning to deploy large databases or a data warehouse with SQL Server, or Internet and intranet applications, to gain access to various sources of data. That data can then be consolidated in SQL Server 2000 using replication, and then placed into a data mart, data warehouse, or multidimensional database, or the data can then be replicated to other data sources.

Methods for implementing replication published by heterogeneous data sources to your SQL Server 2000 applications include:

• Building applications with SQL-DMO and the Replication Distributor Interface
  
  
• Using third-party tools

Microsoft SQL Server 2000 provides a programming framework that enables heterogeneous data sources to become Publishers of snapshot and transactional publications within the SQL Server 2000 replication framework. You can use the Replication Distributor Interface with programmable SQL-DMO objects and third-party tools to publish data incrementally from heterogeneous Publishers.

Using third-party tools, you can configure Oracle, DB2, and other data sources as a merge or incremental Publisher for SQL Server Subscribers, which can then propagate data to other SQL Server or heterogeneous data sources.

By integrating with SQL Server 2000 replication, heterogeneous applications can inherit a full set of replication features, such as:

• Remote store-and-forward databases and Distribution Agents.
  
  
• Heterogeneous Subscribers, including Microsoft Access, Oracle, and DB2.
  
  
• Pull subscriptions.
  
  
• Anonymous subscriptions.
  
  
• Internet subscriptions.
  
  
• Subscriptions on computers running Microsoft Windows® 98.
  
  
• Stand-alone and embeddable Distribution Agents.
  
  
• Monitoring and troubleshooting tools using SQL Server Enterprise Manager.
  
  
• Replication agent scheduling using SQL Server Agent.
  
  
• Alerts and notifications.
  
  
• Performance monitoring.

The programming framework for transactional and snapshot replication from heterogeneous data sources includes:

• Programmable SQL-DMO replication objects for administering and monitoring replication.
  
  
• The Replication Distributor Interface for storing replicated transactions from a heterogeneous Publisher.
  
  
• A Distribution Agent to forward the transactions to Subscribers.
  
  
• SQL Server Enterprise Manager to administer and monitor replication graphically.

Using Data Transformation Services (DTS), heterogeneous data sources can be used to create snapshot replication publications.

See Also

Programming Replication from Heterogeneous Data Sources