SQL Server Standard 10.50.1600.1 (SQL Server 2008 R2 RTM) Mirroring

Hi Osamelgendy,

If upgrading the existing SQL Server 2008 R2 environment is not possible or carries some operational risk, then, Option A would be the better approach in your case.

You can absolutely use Transactional Replication or Log Shipping to keep a modern SQL Server instance (like SQL Server 2019/2022) synchronized with your SQL Server 2008 R2 source.

SQL Server supports replication across different versions within the same topology, as long as the Publisher version is less than or equal to the Distributor version. This means SQL Server 2008 R2 can act as the Publisher, and a newer SQL Server instance can act as the Subscriber. 

Between the two options:

• Transactional Replication is generally more practical if you need near real-time synchronization, since it propagates incremental changes as they occur while maintaining transactional consistency between systems.
• Log Shipping is also possible, but it works by continuously applying transaction log backups from the primary to a secondary database, where only the primary database is available for read/write activity at any given time. 

So Log Shipping is typically more suited for disaster recovery or migration scenarios, whereas Transactional Replication is better for reporting or downstream ingestion use cases like Fabric.

Also, maintaining two synchronized databases is not considered a bad practice. In fact, it is a common modernization pattern used when legacy production systems cannot be upgraded immediately. The secondary database can safely be used as an ingestion or reporting source without impacting the production workload.

So if upgrading is risky, you can:

• Keep SQL Server 2008 R2 as your production system
• Replicate the data to SQL Server 2019/2022
• Use the modern replica for Fabric Mirroring

This approach allows you to modernize your ingestion layer without making changes to the legacy production environment.

Thanks,

Prashanth