sql server replication: Lauren,
I'd consider database mirroring but believe your final comment is incorrect.
In High Availability mode with Safety=full there is automatic failover with
Standard Edition, as far as I understand from
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/sql/2005/dbmirror.mspx
Cheers,
Paul Ibison SQL Server MVP, www.replicationanswers.com

Hi All,

I have a replication requirement for which the best approach by far is to
use merge replication. However, this will leave us in a situation where we
have a single point of failure. Does anyone have any experience or ideas
about developing bespoke code to monitor the publisher and, when the
publisher goes offline, to configure a second server at the site to be the
publisher and reconfigure clients within the site and publishing subscriber
servers at the other sites to subscribe to the alternative publisher? I know
we could define an alternate sync partner but haven't really considered that
as an option as we need to upgrade versions of SQL Server as they become
available and alternate sync partners are deprecated in 2005.

Alternatively, should I just go with database mirroring (we are using 2005
Standard Edition so this is an option with manual failover)?

TIA,