Impact of DTC not running

[divinyl]

Hi all

Could anyone give me some information on the DTC service - i've read up about it an am aware that it needs to running in order for applications to make use of distributed transactions.. but i've hear someone say that if dtc is not running, it will cause all sorts of errors in sql. Is this always the case, even if distributed transactions are not being used? i.e. should the dtc service always be running on a sql server? Are there any exceptions? And in what circumstances are distributed transaction used?

Any information would be appreciated!!
Thanks,
Div

 

[mrdenny]

DTC is used only for server to server communications. If you aren'y using linked server, and the queries that are using the linked servers are not wrapped within BEGIN DISTRIBUTED TRANSACTION / COMMIT.

If MSDTC isn't running you will get an error when the SQL Server starts, but that's it.

If you are using distributed transactions and MSDTC isn't running then you will get errors in the logs and the queries will fail.

Denny
MCSA (2003) / MCDBA (SQL 2000) / MCTS (SQL 2005) / MCITP Database Administrator (SQL 2005)

--Anything is possible. All it takes is a little research. (Me)

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