| title | description | author | ms.author | ms.reviewer | ms.date | ms.service | ms.subservice | ms.topic | ms.custom | helpviewer_keywords | monikerRange | ||||||||
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Replication backward compatibility |
Review these resources for backward compatibility in replication before you upgrade or if you have several versions of SQL Server in a replication topology. |
MashaMSFT |
mathoma |
randolphwest |
02/26/2025 |
sql |
replication |
conceptual |
|
|
=azuresqldb-mi-current||>=sql-server-2016 |
[!INCLUDE SQL Server SQL MI]
Backward compatibility is important to understand if you are upgrading, or if you have more than one version of SQL Server in a replication topology.
The general rules are:
- A Distributor can be any version as long as it is greater than or equal to the Publisher version (in many cases the Distributor is the same instance as the Publisher).
- A Publisher can be any version as long as it less than or equal to the Distributor version.
- The Publisher and Distributor are always the same product:
- If the Publisher is SQL Server, the Distributor is SQL Server.
- If the Publisher is Azure SQL Managed Instance, the Distributor is Azure SQL Managed Instance.
- Subscriber version depends on the type of publication:
- A Subscriber to a transactional publication can be any version within two versions of the Publisher version. For example: a SQL Server 2012 (11.x) Publisher can have SQL Server 2014 (12.x) and SQL Server 2016 (13.x) Subscribers; and a SQL Server 2016 (13.x) Publisher can have SQL Server 2014 (12.x) and SQL Server 2012 (11.x) Subscribers.
- A Subscriber to a merge publication can be any version equal to or lower than the Publisher version, which is supported as per the versions life cycle support cycle.
- The Subscriber can be either SQL Server or Azure SQL Managed Instance, regardless of what product the Distributor is, as long as it's within two versions of the Publisher - except configuring Azure SQL Managed Instance as a pull Subscriber to a SQL Server Distributor isn't supported.
[!INCLUDE replication-compat-matrix-transactional]
[!INCLUDE replication-compat-matrix-merge]