Bidirectional transactional replication and remote distributors

I want to be able to setup the following configuration using bidirectional transactional replication on SQL 2005

instance A lives on machine 1

instance B lives on machine 2

Instance A publishes to a transactional subscription on Instance B

Instance B does the reverse and publishes to a transactional subscription on Instance A

Instance A pushes to a distribution database on machine 2

Instance B pushes to a distribution database on machine 1

Problems Implementing Configuration

I can setup each instance as a distributor and create separate distribution databases using

sp_adddistributor and sp_adddistributiondb

I can then enable each publisher to use the correct distribution database using sp_adddistpublisher

However, when I try and run sp_replicationdboption to setup a database for publication, I get the error:

Msg 20028, Level 16, State 1, Procedure sp_MSpublishdb, Line 55

The Distributor has not been installed correctly. Could not enable database for publishing.

If I try and configure a publication with the wizard, it says that instance A must be enabled as a publisher before you can create a publication - and then presents the dialog to add instance A to be handled by the local distribution database - which I don't want.

It appears that I need to run sp_adddistributor on the publisher as well as the distributor for the appropriate instance, but if I do this I get the error:

Msg 14099, Level 16, State 1, Procedure sp_adddistributor, Line 109

The server 'instance A' is already defined as a Distributor.

It seems that you can't select a remote distributor if you already have a local distributor configured.

Is there a way round this limitation?

Note that configuring the environment with a single distribution database works fine

Try calling sp_adddistpublisher on machine 1 to add machine 2 as publisher and do the same on machine 2 to add machine 1 as publisher.

Regards,

Gary

|||Check out the new Peer-Peer replication in 2005 which does exactly what you want.|||

Gary - I have tried what you suggested and got the following error as per my original post

Msg 14099, Level 16, State 1, Procedure sp_adddistributor, Line 109

The server 'instance A' is already defined as a Distributor.

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Dinakar - thanks for the suggestion - I have been checking out peer to peer, but I am not sure if I can live with the restrictions

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I will probably go with a single distribution database located on the publisher with the lowest load. This should be satisfactory for the requirements

Thanks

aero1