Shutting down replicated database

You can shut down a replicated database in order to gain exclusive access to the databases before you apply changes to the database schema or because the SQL Server administrator needs to stop replication for some other reason. Once replication is stopped, users must not add, edit or delete data and this command will prevent users from logging on until you choose to take the databases online.

About this task

To make it easier to gain exclusive access to the database, you can broadcast a message to all active users in iBase asking them to close the database. You can broadcast the standard message (which is *** WARNING *** This database is now offline) or add an additional message to provide users with some instructions or information. Existing users are not ejected from the databases by this message but new users (except for database administrators) cannot open the database.

Provided that there are no communication failures between any of the sites, taking one database offline, or online, will take all the databases offline, or online, as the command is replicated to all the sites.

Note: Shutting down will not deny database access to services such as the iBase Scheduler service. You must disable these manually. Disable a service rather than stopping it as this will prevent it from restarting if the server is rebooted.

Procedure

To send a message and take all the databases offline:

In the Take Offline dialog, enter an additional message (if required) and select the frequency with which the message is displayed. When selecting a frequency, you may need to leave time for the message to be replicated to the other sites.
Only users who are actively using iBase will see the message. For this reason, if users have not exited from the databases after a certain interval of time, ask the SQL Server administrator to log them out.

Note: To change the frequency with which the message displays or to change the message, you need to select Tools > Replication > Bring Online and then reselect Take Offline.

What to do next

When the databases are offline, select Tools > Replication > Bring Online in order to bring all the databases back online thereby making them available to users wanting to open them.

You can bring the publication database online as soon as your SQL Server administrator tells you that replication is configured for the publisher site. The subscription databases will automatically come back online as the subscriber sites are configured for replication.

Warning: Do not bring the publication database online while replication is disabled. You should only add data (whether manually or by scheduled import), or edit or delete data while replication is running. This is because any changes that are made to the data while replication is disabled cannot be replicated to other sites even when replication is reconfigured.