I've tested TDE with log shipping. It works fine with it. You just have to install the same certificate onto the secondary servers that protects the DEK of the database.

I...

Neither. I want the transactions serialized. That's why I always favor eliminating the possibility of conflicts by application partitioning, DML segregation, or both.

It's the nature of the beast (2-way replication) regardless of the RDBMS. Collisions are going to happen. IMO if you can't come up with an algorithm to decide which client...

If it happens again do exactly what you did except for the backup log with truncate_only. Instead try this...

1. backup log [dbname] ...

2. use [dbname] dbcc shrinkfile (2) ...

I agree with Phil's comment. I dont see why "WITH TRUNCATE_ONLY" is necessary. This breaks the log chain and renders the publishing database unrecoverable. If you do this you should...

Another concern I have with replication are the infamous system deletes. MS in their infinite wisdom decided that keeping the publisher and subscriber in sync is more important than transaction...

I'm not a big fan of replication in any of its forms. I want this to be a worry free backup solution.

Log shipping copies everything. Unless I am mistaken,...

Have you ever tested recovering from a standby database backed up in this manner? I'm working on a very similar backup strategy. The one thing I'm doing differently is that...