I am considering implementing transactional replication on a 70GB main db (soon to migrate to SQL server 2014) with medium-high level CRUD activites. We use SQL Reporting Services (2005-> 2014) for heavy overnight report generation and medium ad-hoc report generation during the business hours.
My thoughts are using transactional replication with 1 new VM for main (publisher) db, 1 new VM for distributor + 1 new VM for subscriber and it's own read-only db for SSRS + 1 new VMN for Report Catalog + 1 VM Report server (5 new VMs).
I intend to use SSRS to retrieve data from subscriber (read-only, with subset of tables from the publisher), not from publisher.
My questions if I want to save some VMs (without loosing too much performance): -Can I put the Report catalog on the same server as the subscriber?, or -Combine distributor and subscriber db on the same VM, but leave Report catalog on a separate VM?
Any other recommendations? Thanks in advance. WM