Merge heavy on distr cpu

125Gb heavy OLTP publication db w/ Transactional Replication replicating 400
tables to 5 different servers. No problems on remote distributor, cpu hardly
used, sits practically idle most of the day staying under 10%. Ram is used
however not getting taxed.
We added merge replication for 1 table and the cpu's pegged to 90 to 100%
each time the merge agents pick up transactions at pub. Every 20 minutes a
job populated this table w/ 100 to 200 inserts at publisher, the 5 merge
agents kick in immediately (continuously running) and spike cpu bringing
server to a crawl.
Publisher, Distributor, & all Subscribers on LAN w/ 100Mbps connections.
SQL 2000 SP3 on all servers. Distributor is a 6CPU PIII 700Mhz each. New
Distributor hardware not an option. Have to limp along until new budgets kick
in...
Thoughts...?
TIA,
Chris
Chris,
are the 100/200 inserts involving BLOB datatypes? How long does the spike
last? Anyway, I'd change the merge agents from running continuously, in
order to stagger their impact on the publisher.
Cheers,
Paul Ibison SQL Server MVP, www.replicationanswers.com
(recommended sql server 2000 replication book:
http://www.nwsu.com/0974973602p.html)
sql