title: SQL server transactional replication, change distribution server
body: <p>I have a SQL 2005 database which is published with dozens of (mostly) transactional publications and dozens of subscribers .  Currently we have a local distributor.  I'm trying to improve our HA for this setup and am looking at mirroring the published database.  Best practices say to use a remote distributor, in case we have to fail over to the mirror so that replication can continue.  I've tested that and it works fine.</p>
  
  <p>But what if the remote distributor fails?  How do I eliminate that as the single point of failure, or better, how do I recover when it does fail?</p>
  
  <p>From testing and what little I could find on the web, I need to completely undo my replication set up (remove subscribers, articles &amp; publications, distributor) and recreate it all with the new remote distributor specified. I'd be fine with that <em>IF</em> I could add my subscribers back without needing to reinitialize them.  I've successfully used the @subscriptionlsn input of sp_addsubscription for similar situations, where I want to resume replication without resnapshoting &amp; reinitializing them .  But by completely undoing replication, the min_autosynch_lsn is lost as are all the outstanding transactions that go with it.</p>
  
  <p>I must be missing something fundamental.  I know clustering my distributor adds a layer of safety, but even that could fail.  So how, or can, I switch to a different distributor without reinitializing my data on them?</p>