Documentation of RMO and Merge Replication

Hi there,

In a lot of the Replication documentation it only refers to the merge agent operating in the context of a push or a pull configuration. i.e. if it is push then the merge agent is at the distributor but if it is a pull then the merge agent functions at the subscriber.

I recently joined a project which is configured as a push but it uses RMO for synchronisation. This RMO application is installed on a compeletely separate server. Initially I thought the RMO was just passing requests through to the publisher/distributor/subscriber but the distributor didn't seem to be doing any of the work. It therefore seems that the merging/synchronisation is being performed on this RMO application server and not the distributor or subscriber.

I therefore think it would be good (assuming I am correct of course) that the documentation reflects this caveat

As a general observation Replication programming seems to be quite detached from the rest of the replication documentation. Is this a deliberate decision

Hi Glenn & Buck,

Thanks very much for getting back to me.

I am glad to hear that the API docs will be more integrated in katmai.

On the other point I am a little confused.  In our setup the merge application using RMO runs on a totally separate server to the distributor but this third machine (distributor is remote to the publisher) has SQL Express installed.  We get back all the callbacks and replication is operating.  I mention this because I think this kind of setup isn't really referred to in BOL but I also believe it is a permissable setup (although not perhaps a very common one).

Cheers, James

It sits on a completely separate 4th server.

Cheers, James

That is correct. You do need to have at least sql express installed. This is the only way to get the RMO components onto the server.

Cheers, James