I have recently taken over some DBA responsibilities in my current role, and I'm struggling with a restore of a merge-replicated Publisher DB and Subscriber DB from Prod into PreProd. Both environments are SQL 2005.
The PreProd environment already has two instances of SQL Server on it with merge replication enabled for a separate combination of Publisher and Subscriber DBs. SQL Instance A on PreProd is the Publisher and the Distributor, and Instance B is the Subscriber.
I have .BAK files of the Publisher and Subscriber DBs I want to restore and have been trying to following the MSDN documentation here: https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms152560%28v=sql.90%29.aspx
However, I am confused about the role and configuration of the Distributor/Distribution Database. The databases I want to restore into PreProd do not currently exist in the PreProd environment. In this case, is the approach to restore both the Publisher and Subscriber and then configure the merge replication separately from the merge replication/publication that currently exists for the other DBs? If so, do I have to run sp_adddistributor again? Is it advisable to use a separate Distribution Database? And what should the @publisher parameter value be for sp_adddistpublisher?
Also, is there a clear way to see the relationships between the Publisher, Publication, Distributor, and Distributor Database?
Any pointers on the above would be greatly appreciated. Please let me know if any further details are needed.
Many thanks,
Paul