Transactional Replication Between Publisher on SQL Server 2008 R2 and Subscriber SQL Server 2016

  • We have Transnational Replication between two servers currently. The Publisher is running on SQL Server 2008 R2 and the Subscriber is running on SQL Server 2014. The Subscriber Server is really our BI Server where we utilize SSRS, SSAS, SSIS and we upgraded to 2014 a while ago to take advantage of some of the 2014 features. Now we want to do the same with the Subscriber Server and go to SQL Server 2016. From what I've been reading Microsoft will no longer be supporting replication between 2008 or 2008R2 and 2016. We don't want to upgrade our Publisher to a new release yet just in case that question my come to mind.

    I can tell you that Transactional Replication from publisher 2008R2 to subscriber 2016 does in fact work I just don't think  Microsoft will support it and it's be depreciated.

    I would like opinions on other alternatives(i.e. Always On, etc etc)

    Thanks in Advance.

  • It may work but that configuration wouldn't be supported. This link has a matrix of supported versions:
    Upgrading a Replication Topology to SQL Server 2016

    However you address it will require some time for testing, recoding or other adjustments, etc. Being that mainstream support has ended for SQL Server 2008 R2 and it's closing in on ending extended support, it seems to make sense to put those efforts into upgrading the 2008 R2 to a newer version.

    Sue

  • Yes I agree. Why not just go 2016 wholesale. When you say the configuration wouldn't be supported, you mean that if we were to have issues, we wouldn't get help from Microsoft.

  • ericwenger1 - Tuesday, July 18, 2017 12:10 PM

    Yes I agree. Why not just go 2016 wholesale. When you say the configuration wouldn't be supported, you mean that if we were to have issues, we wouldn't get help from Microsoft.

    Yes. Keep in mind, there are people who go ahead with unsupported methods, then something breaks and it won't get fixed. And it's your production environment. You're kind of stuck at this point with a broken production environment.
    What if it's a service pack or CU you need for the subscriber and that's what breaks the replication. So then you get to chose which issues to have and basically have a broken production environment. And other scenarios I'm not thinking of.
    Not saying you would but I wouldn't take the position of "it runs fine now so we can go ahead even if it's not supported".

    Sue

  • No we aren't going to go with an unsupported product. Certainly not in production.

    Thanks  for your response

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