Homogeneous replication
The following section describes how Data Movement gateway handles replication from Microsoft SQL Server to Microsoft SQL Server-based targets. Note that homogeneous replication is only relevant with Replication data projects.
In homogeneous replication, source column and table collations will be replicated to the target as described in Column and table collation.
To prevent data truncation when replicating columns with an XML data type, it is strongly recommended to enable the Replicate unlimited LOB columns option in the task settings' Metadata tab.
Data type exceptions
When replicating from Microsoft SQL Server database to an SQL Server-based target, source and target data types are identical for all supported Microsoft SQL Server versions, with the following exceptions:
| Microsoft SQL Server Source | SQL Server-based Target |
|---|---|
|
VARCHAR |
VARCHAR (x) (when x=0 or x>8000) else VARCHAR (max) |
|
NVARCHAR (length) |
NVARCHAR (x) (when x=0 or x>8000) else NVARCHAR (max) |
|
VARBINARY |
VARBINARY (x) (when x=0 or x>8000) else VARBINARY (max) |
|
HIERARCHYID |
VARCHAR (x) |
|
TIMESTAMP |
VARBINARY |
Column and table collation
When replicating from Microsoft SQL Server to an SQL Server-based target, column and table collations will be replicated to the target.
To support collation replication, the DBA must ensure that the collations defined for the source Microsoft SQL Server database are the same as those defined for the SQL Server-based target database.
Non-nullable columns and primary/unique index names
Primary/Unique Index names are preserved during homogeneous replication. Non-nullable columns are also preserved during homogeneous replication, with the exception of the following data types:
- text
- ntext1
- varchar(max)
- nvarchar(max)
- varbinary(max)
- image
- xml