The Replication Topology Implementation Should Meet Existing Business Needs

Business requirements should define the following:

• Acceptable lag times

• Transformation

• Monitoring

By documenting the acceptable lag times in replication in a data architecture, service level agreements can be established along with the ability to determine appropriate replication schemes to be used along with scheduling. Data replication from an OLTP to a decision support system (DSS) usually results in data transformation. The business requirements should clearly articulate transformation requirements. This will allow an architect to determine any additional processing overhead on both the source and destination data sources and to make appropriate adjustments for performance and scalability.

Additionally, the business requirements should outline any monitoring requirements. Sound enterprise architecture will have a systems management component that will address configuration, monitoring, and administration.