moving replication to new servers

I've got a publisher, distributor and subscriber on different servers and I
want to move all 3 to different servers. Is there a way to restore the
publishing database
on the new publisher, the subscribing database on the new subscriber and
then continue replication? knowing, of course, that I'd have to set up the
new distributor as well.
I know I can create the new publication, backup the database and restore
that on the new subscriber and initialize replication backup, but the
databases are fairly large and if I can restore both the publisher and the
subscriber at the same time, it would save much time. I need to minimize
down time.
Thanks!
There is no real way to do this. What Microsoft does support is restoring
master, distribution, msdb, and the publication database on a new server,
restoring the last tlog of the publication database on the new server with
the keep_replication switch, taking the first server offline, rebooting the
standby after renaming it as the original publisher name, and then issuing a
sp_replrestart to get everything working again.
Hilary Cotter
Looking for a SQL Server replication book?
http://www.nwsu.com/0974973602.html
Looking for a FAQ on Indexing Services/SQL FTS
http://www.indexserverfaq.com
"Steve" <Steve.sam@.hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:eb2nTSzaHHA.2448@.TK2MSFTNGP02.phx.gbl...
> I've got a publisher, distributor and subscriber on different servers and
> I want to move all 3 to different servers. Is there a way to restore the
> publishing database
> on the new publisher, the subscribing database on the new subscriber and
> then continue replication? knowing, of course, that I'd have to set up
> the new distributor as well.
> I know I can create the new publication, backup the database and restore
> that on the new subscriber and initialize replication backup, but the
> databases are fairly large and if I can restore both the publisher and the
> subscriber at the same time, it would save much time. I need to minimize
> down time.
> Thanks!
>