The PDS metaphor describes the arrangement of publication, distribution, and subscription servers in the logical replication architecture. The logical arrangement, when implemented, is manifested in physical replication models. All of the replication method examples contained herein use the default model. Evident from the metaphor names, the Publisher is responsible for producing publications that are distributed by agents on the Distributor to one or more Subscribers. Publications consist of one or more articles.
Articles are the lowest level data construct in replication.
The DBA can customize an article to provide various cuts, or views, of the data. Tables used in an article can be vertically or horizontally partitioned to provide tailored replication data to different Subscribers. Push Subscribers, the default and most common method, have the replication updates pushed to them by the Distributor. Push Subscribers are defined and managed on the publishing database. The two substantial benefits of push subscriptions are that they are more secure than pulls and they enable centralized management.