Running Subscriptions and Groups

The Run Subscription and Run Group commands start a replication operation for the selected subscription or group, respectively. You can execute the Run Subscription command for any subscription that is not already running, and the Run Group command for any group that is not already running. Select a subscription or a group and then select the Run Subscription or Run Group command from the File menu or right-click to display the context menu.

Note that, after you define an incremental replication subscription and the baseline replication completes, typically there is no need for you to explicitly run the subscription or group again. Running an incremental group creates a new baseline replication for any subscription that is flagged with errors. Periodic polling errors may occur, such as when the SQDR Plus host is unavailable due to periodic maintenance, but usually are resolved by the next polling cycle and do not require creating a new baseline for the incremental subscription(s). Run a new baseline only when there are severe errors that prevent the change data from being applied to the target, such as if the schema is changed and the source table is dropped and re-created.

You also can schedule a snapshot subscription or group to run at a specific time and date or on a recurring basis, or schedule baseline replications for a group of incremental subscriptions. If a subscription is scheduled to run automatically and the schedule is triggered when the subscription is being run on demand or by a group, the scheduled replication generates an error to the event log.

The icon for a snapshot subscription that is not running appears as a page , to which a green up arrow is added when the subscription is running. A gray up arrow indicates the subscription is running elsewhere, such as within a group if you are looking at the list of subscriptions under a particular source.

The icons for subscriptions that perform incremental replication differ from snapshot subscriptions. After the initial baseline replication is finished the subscription is monitoring for changes at the source and appears with a green circle to indicate it is active.  There may be a period of time that the page and group icon appear with a black center in the green circle, such as , until SQDR confirms that the baseline is synchronized with any changes that occurred while the baseline was being performed. If a problem occurs that affects the incremental replication operation the subscription icon changes to show a warning condition or an error condition , depending on the severity of the problem. Warning conditions often are corrected over time with no user intervention. Error conditions may need to be corrected by an administrator. For example, if an error is encountered because the source table was dropped or altered, the subscription properties must be reviewed and refreshed to reflect the changes to the source before a new baseline replication can be performed and incremental changes can flow again.