• "Snapshot Replication" makes a copy of the entire database on a scheduled basis. This may be an option if you are trying to make a second database just for your reporting.

    "Database Snapshot" is not actually a copy of a database, it is a collection of the database pages before they are modified - basically giving you the ability to look at what your database looked at when the snapshot was taken. This would be useful if you wanted to ensure re-running reports would always yield the same results.

    I think this thread has illustrated that there are a bunch of options. You should get the requirements together before choosing. Determine how much latency is acceptable, if the users expect re-running reports throughout the day will give the same results, if your reporting database schema needs to be different than that of your OLTP system, how and how much the OLTP system and reporting system will conflict for SQL and hardware resources. Then you need to look at the available options and try to find the peg that best fits the hole for your situation. Take the time to do some testing and be sure to think about the future a bit.