We seem to have a "problem" database. The database is hit by processing
(inserts, updates, selects) done by a compiler app; selects, updates and
insert through the web by clients, queries by customer service reps, as well
as report parsing and a couple of other apps running against it.
The compiler app now can take up to 6 hours to process 20k "claims".
I have been thinking that by using replication (transactional) to do the
processing on one server and the customer and customer service on another,
the load would be decreased, along with the contention, and the applications
would run faster.
But I have never used replication before and don't know if this is a good
situation to use it in.
Any ideas?
Thanks
Nancy

Nancy,
using transactional replication to offload reporting requirements is quite
common. The only 'dpwnside' is that the reporting server has a short
latency. An alternative in SQL Server 2005 is to use database mirroring and
database snapshots.
Cheers,
Paul Ibison SQL Server MVP, www.replicationanswers.com
(recommended sql server 2000 replication book:
http://www.nwsu.com/0974973602p.html)

I would take it that the amount of latency would have to do with the amount
of processing that is going on?
Nancy
"Paul Ibison" <Paul.Ibison (AT) Pygmalion (DOT) Com> wrote

Nancy,
this is one of the main factors, along with some others inc some of the
parameter values used by the log reader and distribution agents, esp
POLLINGINTERVAL and whether the distributer is on another machine. In my
experienceit is common to have a latency < 1 minute but obviously this is
quite general.
Cheers,
Paul Ibison SQL Server MVP, www.replicationanswers.com
(recommended sql server 2000 replication book:
http://www.nwsu.com/0974973602p.html)