SQL Backup, Log Backup & Replication

[De Slab]

Morning All,

I've already got an open ticket at the moment, but am looking for some clarity from users before I proceed.

We currently have a SQL server running at our main site that we backup with 1 job a day (application-aware processing enabled with SQL log backup and truncation every 15 minutes)
As a result we also have a child Transaction Log Backup job that runs 24hours and activates every 15 minutes.
These backups are stored on on-site backup infrastructure and written to tape every night.

We now have a project to ensure we have a "warm" offsite copy or replica of essential systems.
By warm, we mean more up to date than if we just replicated the midnight backup out to the site each day.

We have established that we cannot simply create a replica of the server and have it pick up the transaction logs that have been copied and truncated.
So I have been advised to create a replica job that will run as many times a day as we need to keep it offsite sufficiently "warm".

My concerns are;

1) The replication process impacting on server functionality
2) Whether the replica is application-aware/transaction-consistant
3) Whether the replication process will impact the existing transaction log job

Does anyone have any hands on experience with this, or advice?

Cheers,
De

[foggy]

To avoid impact on the backup job and transaction logs processing chain, you should configure replication job to perform copy only of tlogs. The VM itself will be application-consistent, but the logs chain will not be touched. With this setup, however, the original VM itself will be impacted more seriously, due to frequent snapshots.