Use publications to collect replication definitions for tables and/or stored procedures and then subscribe to them as a group.
With publications, you can monitor the status of one publication subscription for a set of tables and procedures. Publication usage is not a separate model; it provides a grouping technique that can be used by any model.
When you use publications, you create and manage the following objects:
Articles – replication definition extensions for tables or stored procedures that let you put table or function replication definitions in a publication.
Publications – groups of articles from the same primary database.
Publication subscriptions – subscriptions to a publication. When you create a publication subscription, Replication Server creates a subscription for each of the publication’s articles.
The following steps summarize the procedure for replicating data using publications.
Create or select the replication definitions to include in the publication.
Create the publication, using the create publication command.
Create articles that reference the replication definitions you have chosen, using the create article command.
Validate the publication using the validate publication command.
Create a subscription for the publication using the create subscription command.
In Figure 3-11, a table replication definition pubs_rep, referenced by two articles, and a function replication definition, referenced by one article, are collected in the publication pubs2_pub.
