Difference between Mirroring and Replication

Mirroring:
Mirroring is also known as Shadowing, is the process of creating multiple copies of data and database. Generally in mirroring, the database is copied on totally different machine or location from its main database. There is if any primary server smashes for the maintenance then at that time, the system can failure to the mirrored database automatically. So, at any given time, only one copy can be obtained.

Mirroring is done on database. And it does not support the distributed database. The tight coupling between the mirrored and primary database is established with the assistance of causation blocks of the dealings log to the reflected database. Just in case of any failure, it’s conjointly capable of restoring the information by repeating it from one database to a different. Once any failure takes place, the mirrored database becomes the principal info.

Replication:
Replication is that the method of making distributing the object of database and data at totally different databases to boost the supply of the information. It’s capable of rolling up the company information from geographically spread sites and spreading the information to remote users on net or LAN. In this, parallel execution are increased. The publisher is associate entity that has the information for replication to different servers in the Microsoft SQL server.
The subscriber could be a server that typically receives the replicated information from a publisher. There are three types Microsoft SQL server for replication operation:-

• Transaction replication
• Merge replication
• Snapshot replication

Difference between Mirroring and Replication:

S.NO	Parameter	Mirroring	Replication
1.	Basic	Mirroring is the copying of data or database to a different location.	While replication is the creation of data and database objects to increase the distribution actions.
2.	Performed on	We perform mirroring on the database.	While we perform replication on the objects of data and database.
3.	Cost	Mirroring operation on database is costlier than replication.	While replication is less costlier than mirroring.
4.	Distributed database	Mirroring does not support the distributed database.	While replication supports the distributed database.
5.	Location	Generally mirror database is implemented on a different machine or location from its main database.	While in replication, the database and data objects are kept in another database.