In addition to setting up Agent alerts related to replication, what is the
best way of ensuring that transactional replication is functioning and both
tables are truly in sync?

In the past we've simply run queries against the two tables and compared
results, but we are looking for a more automated way of doing these checks.
I've run across the following SP in BOL which appears to do this, but I'm
not sure of the impact in running it, etc: "sp_publication_validation
@publication = 'database_pub', @rowcount_only = 1".

I'm sure there are many "schools of thought" regarding this topic. What are
you doing to ensure replication is functioning properly in your
environments?

Thanks!
Chris

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