Materialization is a process of creating and activating subscriptions and copying data from a primary database to a replicate database, thereby initializing the replicate database.
Before you can replicate data from a primary database, you must set up and populate each replicate database so that the replicate objects (tables and so forth) are in a state consistent with those in the primary database.
Two types of subscription materialization are supported by Replication Server:
Bulk materialization – manually creating and activating a subscription and populating a replicate database using data unload and load utilities outside the control of the replication system.
Automatic materialization – creating a subscription and populating a replicate database using Replication Server commands.
For more information about subscription materialization methods, see the Replication Server Administration Guide.
To materialize subscriptions to primary data in a non-Sybase data server, you must use a bulk materialization method.
With bulk materialization methods, you must coordinate and manually perform the following activities:
Define, activate, and validate the subscription (or create the subscription without materialization).
Unload the subscription data at the primary database.
Move the unloaded data to the replicate database site.
Load the primary data into the replicate database tables.
Resume the database connection from the replicate Replication Server to the replicate data server so that the replicate database can receive replicated transactions.
Resume replication at the Replication Agent instance.
There are two bulk materialization options for subscriptions to primary data in a non-Sybase database:
Atomic bulk materialization
Stop updates to the primary table and dump the subscription data from the primary database.
In the replicate Replication Server, define the subscription.
In the primary database, use the rs_marker stored procedure to activate the subscription using the with suspension option.
Load the subscription data into the replicate table.
Resume the database connection from the replicate Replication Server to the replicate database.
In the replicate Replication Server, validate the subscription.
Nonatomic bulk materialization
In the replicate Replication Server, use the set autocorrection command.
In the replicate Replication Server, define the subscription.
In the primary database, use the rs_marker stored procedure to activate the subscription using the with suspension option.
Dump the subscription data from the primary database.
In the primary database, use the rs_marker stored procedure to validate the subscription.
Load the subscription data into the replicate table.
Resume the database connection from the replicate Replication Server to the replicate database.
When the subscription becomes valid at all Replication Servers, turn off autocorrection.
