Greetings Guys,

I am setting up  transaction replication in SQL Server 2012 with three individual servers for Distribuator, Publisher, Subscriber, But I want to know how to set the folder for Snapshot agent like whether the folder should be a network shared folder or normal local folder. Please let me know.

With regards,

Gop

A

Thanks for reply Stan, the servers are not in domain, they are separate stand alone servers, I have created the snapshot agent folder  on the distributor itself and the initial snapshot was created successfully however when I try to initialize my subscriber I get messages like initial snapshot was not created or   snapshot was incomplete etc, any idea on this ? I never found any article with 3 servers for each, most of the articles show publisher residing with distributor.

With regards,

Gopinath.

Hi Gopinath,

Could you please post the full error message for analysis?

As described in this article, if you are using a remote Distributor, you must specify a UNC network share (such as \\<computername>\snapshot) rather than a local path for the snapshot folder. Also please ensure that the Snapshot Agent has write permission to the folder, and ensure that read permission is granted to the Windows account that the Distribution agent uses when accessing the folder.

Moreover, from your description, it seems that you are configuring transactional replication across workgroups , right? If that is the case, please create a local Windows account on the Publisher, Distributor and Subscriber that has the same username and password. Use this account for the replication agent process account  and ensure that account has the permissions required in Replication Agent Security Model.

For more details about configuring replication across workgroups, please review the following KB article.
HOW TO: Replicate Between Computers Running SQL Server in Non-Trusted Domains or Across the Internet

Thanks,
Lydia