Publication databases use the following tables (part of the database catalog) for replication purposes:
| Table | Description |
|---|---|
| sysarticles | Has a row for each of the articles posted by the publication server. |
| sysobjects | Has a category field set by replication for each object marked for replication. This is set when an article is created and when an article is initially subscribed to. |
| syspublications | Has a row for each of the publications posted by the publication server. |
| syssubscriptions | Associates the IDs of published articles with the IDs of all subscription servers expecting to receive the data. |
Destination databases maintain replication information in the MSlast_job_info table:
| Table | Description |
|---|---|
| MSlast_job_info | Contains the job ID of the last job (from a batch) that was successfully applied. (A job is a complete transaction from the transaction log of the publication database.) Also, if present, contains information about an article that has paused distribution while waiting for manual synchronization. |
Distribution databases contain the following tables dedicated to replication:
| Table | Description |
|---|---|
| MSjob_commands | Contains one entry for each command associated with a transaction in the MSjobs table. One transaction can contain many commands. |
| MSjob_subscriptions | Associates a subscriber with a particular article. (This is actually subscriber-side information that is maintained in the distribution database.) |
| MSjobs | Contains the actual transactions. There is one entry for every transaction stored in the distribution database. |
| MSsubscriber_info | Contains information used by SQL Executive for passing jobs. |
| MSsubscriber_jobs | Associates each subscriber with the command that subscriber needs to receive. |
| MSsubscriber_status | Contains status information for the individual batches of transactions sent to subscribers. |
All servers participating in replication keep some replication-related data in the system catalog found in the master database:
| Table | Description |
|---|---|
| sysservers | Used by both the publication and subscription servers. The srvstatus column has status bits set for RPC, PUBLISH, SUBSCRIBE, and DISTRIBUTE. A publication server uses all four options to register the subscribing servers that can receive its publications. A subscription server uses only the RPC option to register the publication servers that it authorizes to send it publications. The options can be reviewed by running sp_helpserver and viewing the status column. |
| sysdatabases | Used by the publication server. When set up for replication, the category column defines whether a database is permitted to publish. |
For more information about the tables used by replication, see the specific table, listed separately.