I've faced a problem when my .Net web application is running slow, even when I've optimized all queries. As it turned out another developer, who is making reports runs a bunch of non optimized queries all the time. So I've decided to create a separate server for him. Currently I created Jobs making backup, copying it to another server and restoring it. But it's temporary solution, so in order for second server have up to date data or at least with minimal latency I'm investigating an opportunity to create a read only replica.
As I'm not a DBA I've read a bunch or articles regarding SQL Server replication mechanism. The best option for me is when my PROD web application isn't affected by replication at all, I mean lots of lock on syncronizing tables. I don't need a real time sync as mirroring does it, also I don't need any king of cluster solution, just read only syncing copy of my PROD database. So I've choosed Transactional replication mechanism(not updatable) with asynchronous distributing policy(on schedule).
So I've some question:
Does Transactional replication suit my problem the most among SQL Server replication mechanisms?
If I have an opportunit to migrate from SQL Server 2008 to SQL Server 2012 would transactional replication have some breaking changes? I've read an article on technet that there might occur errors?
Isn't SQL Server 2012
Always Onmechanism better to solve my problem(I'm considering this option as last one, as I'm still using 2008 R2, and yet migration to 2012 is planned by not soon)?