I'm trying to create a snapshot of a database that I will use for reporting. The requirements are to capture specific tables in the production database. Afterwards, I need to execute a stored procedure that will normalize a particular table column (also captured from the snapshot) that has XML data. I also need to keep track of that normalized data to the snapshot using a primary key.
I have no issues in parsing the XML, I do XQuery a lot. The challenge for me is to execute this in a scheduled task that runs on specific hours. So I'm reading through documentation about Transactional Replication. I hope I'm on the right track.
Another limitation is to support MS SQL 2005 databases, so I would need a solution that is backward compatible to that as well. Most of the solutions I've seen on the web requires a lot of physical tinkering in the management studio, perhaps, you can guide me how I could script that for automated deployment?
I hope you guys can guide me to the best solution. I can always use MERGE scripts but if there's a more standardized way, I'm up to it.