Guru's Guide to SQL Server Architecture and Internals, The

The Snapshot Agent

As with all replication agents, the Snapshot Agent is a console mode application that uses ODBC to communicate with SQL Server. The executables for SQL Server's replication agents reside in the 80\COM subfolder under the Microsoft SQL Server folder. When you set up a snapshot publication, SQL Server creates a SQL Server Agent job that runs the Snapshot Agent. You can view this job by opening the appropriate entry under the Agents\Snapshot Agents node in the Replication Monitor on the distributor (or via the Jobs node under Management\SQL Server Agent) in Enterprise Manager. Each snapshot job consists of several steps, one of which is to run snapshot.exe, the executable for the Snapshot Agent. The job step that actually runs ...