Enable Publication Databases
Select the databases that will be enabled to publish snapshot and transactional publications and/or merge publications.
You must be a member of the sysadmin fixed server role to enable a database for publishing. After a database is enabled, a database owner can create publications based on it. An administrator, however, can create a publication without the database having been enabled previously for publication.
If you want to create snapshot or transactional publications based on the database, enable the database for transactional replication. Snapshot replication is the process of copying and distributing data and database objects exactly as they appear at a moment in time. Snapshot replication does not require continuous monitoring of changes because changes made to published data are not propagated to Subscriber(s) incrementally.
With transactional replication, an initial snapshot of data is propagated to Subscribers, and then when data modifications are made at the Publisher, the individual transactions are captured and propagated to Subscribers.
If you want to create merge publications, enable the database for merge replication. Merge replication allows various sites to work autonomously (online or offline) and merge updates made at multiple sites into a single, uniform result at a later time. The initial snapshot is applied to Subscribers, and then SQL Server 2000 tracks changes to published data at the Publisher and at the Subscribers. The data is synchronized between servers either at a scheduled time or on demand. Because updates are made independently (no commit protocol) at more than one server, the same data may have been updated by the Publisher or by more than one Subscriber. Therefore, conflicts can occur when updates are merged.