Full Text Search/Indexes and Transaction Replication, can they co-exist?

[Charles Deaton]

SQL 2000 SP 3a running in an active passive cluster on Windows 2003.
This is the publisher and distributor of several publication in
transaction replication. Subscriptions are pulled anonymously. I plan
on setting up Full Text indexes/search on the cluster, on several of
the replicated tables, and was wondering if anyone has had any
experiences with this or can find any reason it would not work. Since
it's SQL 2000 and timestamp values can be replicated I can't see that
this would be an issue (as with SQL 7) as I will be using Change
Tracking to keep the indexes up to date.

[Hilary Cotter]

It is do-able. First of all script out your tables you wish to full text
index and the related fulltext indexes and the catalog on your publisher.
Then run this script on the subscriber. Then when creating your publication
when you get to the specify articles dialog, click on the articles default
button, and select table defaults. In the snapshot tab, select delete all
data in existing table.

Now when you create your subscription the full-text indexes on the
subscriber will survive the snapshot.
--
Hilary Cotter
Looking for a SQL Server replication book?
http://www.nwsu.com/0974973602.html

Looking for a FAQ on Indexing Services/SQL FTS
http://www.indexserverfaq.com

Post by Charles Deaton
SQL 2000 SP 3a running in an active passive cluster on Windows 2003.
This is the publisher and distributor of several publication in
transaction replication. Subscriptions are pulled anonymously. I plan
on setting up Full Text indexes/search on the cluster, on several of
the replicated tables, and was wondering if anyone has had any
experiences with this or can find any reason it would not work. Since
it's SQL 2000 and timestamp values can be replicated I can't see that
this would be an issue (as with SQL 7) as I will be using Change
Tracking to keep the indexes up to date.

[Charles Deaton]

Thanks Hilary,

I'm not necessarily concerned about replicating the full text indexes,
although it may be of use later. My major concern is can I replicate
the tables that have full text indexes with out issue? Also, since the
tables are already published can I just add the full text indexes
without worry?

Charles Deaton