I have two SQL Server servers.
- 1st is an Enterprise edition and it is a local server
- 2nd is an Express edition and it is online
Now, the 1st pushes transactional replication to the 2nd.
My question: is it possible to do merge replication between those two? Can I configure the 1st server to pull changes from the 2nd server also?
And if its not possible what is the best approach to do it programmatically?
From what I've searched (and found, e.g. https://dba.stackexchange.com/a/194380/239286), it seems not to be possible to pull changes from the SQL Express Edition back to the Enterprise (or Standard) Editions. Although MS states that Merge-Replications would be possible.
I think the root cause is that the Express Edition dosn't have a "Agent", which is needed to publish/distrbute changes.
I can't give any recommendation to what would be the best way to solve this issue programmatically. One way would (could?) be to change your second SQL-Server from Express to a Standard Edition (untested), at least that's what we are aiming to.
See also these regarding this topic: https://www.sqlservercentral.com/forums/topic/is-merge-replication-available-in-sql-server-express#post-906916 https://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/4ade52f9-84fd-47a1-a9d1-c5a15b968520/merge-replication-with-sql-express