Snapshot replication

Snapshot replication from SQL Server #

In snapshot replication, Replicant first creates the destination schemas. After creating the schemas, Replicant captures all the existing data from the source and transfers it to the target database.

You can enable snapshot replication by running Replicant with the snapshot option. For more information, see Replicant snapshot mode.

Follow the steps in the following sections to set up SQL Server for snapshot mode replication. In these steps, $REPLICANT_HOME refers to your Arcion Self-hosted CLI download directory.

I. Required Permissions #

To allow replication, you need to first verify that the necessary permissions are in place on source SQL Server. For more information, see SQL Server User Permissions

II. Set up connection configuration #

Specify the connection details of your SQL Server instance to Replicant in one of the following ways:

Using a connection configuration file. #

The connection configuration fild holds the connection details and login credentials. You can find a sample connection configuration file sqlserver.yaml in the $REPLICANT_HOME/conf/conn directory. The following configuration parameters are available:

type #

The connection type representing the database. In this case, it’s SQLSERVER.

host #

The hostname of your SQL Server system.

port #

The port number to connect to the host.

username #

The username credential to access the SQL Server system.

password #

The password associated with username.

auth-type #

The authentication protocol for the connection. The following protocols are supported:

  • NATIVE (Default)
  • NLTM

Default authentication protocol is always NATIVE if you don’t explicitly set the auth-type parameter.

In case of NLTM protocol, provide the username in DOMAIN\USER format—for example, domain\alex.

is_azure #

Optional parameter. If you’re hosting SQL Server on Azure, you must set this parameter to true.

max-connections #

The maximum number of connections Replicant uses to load data into the SQL Server system.

The following is a sample connection configuration:

type: SQLSERVER

host: localhost
port: 1433

username: 'USERNAME'
password: 'PASSWORD'

max-connections: MAX_NUMBER_OF_CONNECTIONS

Use a secrets management service #

You can store your connection credentials in a secrets management service and tell Replicant to retrieve the credentials. For more information, see Secrets management.

Use KeyStore for credentials #

Replicant supports consuming login credentials from a credentials store. Instead of specifying username and password in plain form, you can keep them in a KeyStore and provide the KeyStore details in the connection configuration file like below:

credential-store:
  type: {PKCS12|JKS|JCEKS}
  path: PATH_TO_KEYSTORE_FILE
  key-prefix: PREFIX_OF_THE_KEYSTORE_ENTRY
  password: KEYSTORE_PASSWORD

Replace the following:

  • PATH_TO_KEYSTORE_FILE: The path to your KeyStore file.
  • PREFIX_OF_THE_KEYSTORE_ENTRY: The prefix of your KeyStore entries. You can create entries in the credential store using a prefix that preceeds each credential alias. For example, you can create KeyStore entries with aliases sqlserver_username and sqlserver_password. You can then set key-prefix to sqlserver_.
  • KEYSTORE_PASSWORD: The KeyStore password. This parameter is optional. If you don’t want to specify the KeyStore password here, then you must use the UUID from your license file as the KeyStore password. Remember to keep your license file somewhere safe in order to keep the KeyStore password secure.

III. Set up Extractor configuration #

To configure snapshot replication according to your requirements, specify your configuration in the Extractor configuration file. You can find a sample Extractor configuration file sqlserver.yaml in the $REPLICANT_HOME/conf/src directory.

All configuration parameters for snapshot mode live under the snapshot section. The following is a sample configuration:

snapshot:
  threads: 16
  fetch-size-rows: 5_000

  _traceDBTasks: true
  min-job-size-rows: 1_000_000
  max-jobs-per-chunk: 32

  per-table-config:
  - catalog: tpch      
    schema: dbo
    tables:
      lineitem:
        row-identifier-key: [l_orderkey, l_linenumber]
        split-key: l_orderkey
        split-hints:
          row-count-estimate: 15000
          split-key-min-value: 1
          split-key-max-value: 60000

For more information about the configuration parameters in snapshot mode, see Snapshot Mode.