Here is my scenario,
I am converting records from various sytems/databases into a mssql database. I retrieve a copy of the data on Friday afternoon and run my conversion process locally during the weekend. I then create a .bak file of this converted data and transfer it to the client machine where I restore it into a staging database. I then dts the data into the empty production database for the client to start using Tuesday. They continue to use their old system during the weekend and will have more data that was entered after the data pull on Friday which needs to be converted as well. So, after they start using the new system, they stop using the old, and I pull the data from their old system one last time and process only the records that were added after the Friday data pull. I check the MAX(identity field) value from each table that I will be putting data into and then reseed on my local machine with a gap of 1000 (depending on the average number of records that they process per day. Usually less than 100). I then process this new data set locally and then transfer a .bak file to the client machine and restore to the staging database. After this, I dts that data into the production database.
My question is, if their MAX() values was 10,250 and I reseed my local machine to 11,250 to accommodate any records added during the time that I pull and process the final days worth of data, and then process the records and I end with MAX() = 11,750, when I start the dts process, if it takes 30 seconds to run and during that 30 seconds, 250 records have transferred so far and there are still 250 more to go...if a user enters a new record during this millisecond timeframe, will sql assign the new record an identity value of 10,251 since the dts process is not completed yet, or will it assign the new record with an identity value of 11,500 falling within the values of the data set that I am transferring?
I know this may be a confusing scenario, but it is highly important to know whether or not I should seek an alternate method of transferring this "gap" data.