Removing members from a replication group
You can remove Subscribers from a replication group by using the Active Roles console:
- Connect to the Publisher Administration Service.
- Select a Subscriber from the Configuration Databases container, right-click the Subscriber, and click Delete.
If Active Roles does not have sufficient rights to perform the operation on SQL Server, then the Active Roles console prompts you to supply an alternative account for that operation (see “Permissions for adding or removing a Subscriber” in the Active Roles Quick Start Guide).
Using this method, you can remove only Subscribers. The Publisher cannot be removed from its replication group when the group includes Subscribers.
To remove the Publisher, you must first remove all Subscribers, and then demote the Publisher. This action deletes the entire replication group.
After you remove all Subscribers, you can demote the Publisher: in the Configuration Databases container, right-click the Publisher and click Demote.
If Active Roles does not have sufficient rights to perform the Demote operation on SQL Server, then the Active Roles console prompts you to supply an alternative account for that operation (see “Permissions for creating or removing the Publisher” in the Active Roles Quick Start Guide).
Steps for removing members from a replication group
To remove Subscribers from a replication group
- Connect to the Publisher Administration Service.
- In the console tree, expand Configuration | Server Configuration, and click Configuration Databases.
- In the details pane, right-click the Subscriber, and then click Delete.
To remove the Publisher from a replication group
- Connect to the Publisher Administration Service.
- In the console tree, expand Configuration | Server Configuration, and click Configuration Databases.
- In the details pane, right-click the Publisher, and then click Demote.
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NOTE:
- For information on how to connect to an Administration Service, see Connecting to the Administration Service earlier in this chapter.
- The Publisher cannot be removed from its replication group when the group includes Subscribers. To remove the Publisher, you must first remove all Subscribers, and then demote the Publisher. This action deletes the replication group. After you remove all Subscribers, you can demote the Publisher.
- The Demote command is not displayed unless the Publisher is the only member of the replication group.
- If Active Roles does not have sufficient rights to perform the operation on SQL Server, then the Active Roles console prompts you to supply an alternative account for that operation (see “Replication configuration permissions” in the Active Roles Quick Start Guide).
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Monitoring replication
Active Roles makes it possible to monitor the status of replication partners. Monitoring allows you to determine whether Active Roles replication is working efficiently and correctly. You can view the status of a replication partner via the Active Roles console:
- Connect to any Administration Service within the replication group.
- Open the Properties dialog box for the replication partner and go to the Replication Status tab.
To connect to the Administration Service, use the instructions provided earlier in this chapter (see Connecting to the Administration Service).
Once connected to the Administration Service, perform the following steps to open the Properties dialog box for a replication partner:
- In the console tree, expand Configuration | Server Configuration, and select Configuration Databases.
- In the details pane, right-click the replication partner, and click Properties.
The Replication Status tab in the Properties dialog box provides information about the last replication action of the partner and indicates whether the action completed successfully, failed, or is in progress.
If there are any replication failures in Active Roles, the Active Roles console provides a visual indication of this issue by modifying the icon of the Server Configuration and Configuration Databases containers in the console tree. This allows you to detect a replication failure without examining individual databases.
For more information on how to monitor the health of Active Roles replication, refer to the Active Roles Replication: Best Practices and Troubleshooting document.
Using AlwaysOn Availability Groups
To improve the availability of the Active Roles Administration Service, you can use Always On Availability Groups introduced in Microsoft SQL Server 2012. With Always On Availability Groups, SQL Server provides a failover environment known as an availability group for a set of availability databases that fail over together from one SQL Server instance to another. You can add the Active Roles database to an availability group, and have the Administration Service automatically reconnect to the database when the availability group fails over to another SQL Server instance.
An availability group defines a set of availability replicas to host copies of each availability database. Each availability group has at least two availability replicas: a primary and a secondary replica.
The primary replica hosts the read-write copy of each availability database held in the availability group. A secondary replica hosts a read-only copy of each availability database, and serves as a potential failover target for the availability group. During a failover, a secondary replica transitions to the primary role, becoming the new primary replica. The new primary replica brings its databases online as the primary databases for read-write access.
Adding the Active Roles database to an availability group ensures the uninterrupted operation of the Active Roles Administration Service. If a server or software failure occurs on the SQL Server side, the availability group can instantly switch the database to a secondary replica, enabling the Administration Service to reconnect seamlessly to the database in the new location.
For more information about Always On Availability Groups, see AlwaysOn Availability Groups (SQL Server) in the Microsoft SQL documentation.