Restore procedure on a database when replication is enabled

Your assessment is accurate for your specific environment. Since your replication setup is intended for an ELT tool without standard SQL Server subscribers, you avoid the complexities of resynchronizing downstream databases. The primary hurdle during a restore is the LSN mismatch between the restored publisher and the distributor.

You should perform your restore as you normally would. If you are restoring over the existing database on the same server, the replication metadata is generally preserved, but the Log Reader Agent will fail because it is looking for a log sequence that the restored database does not yet have.

Immediately after the restore is finished, run EXEC sp_replrestart within the context of the restored publisher database.

This procedure is designed for this scenario. It synchronizes the metadata between the publisher and the distributor by resetting the tracking points. This tells the Log Reader Agent to start its next scan at the end of the current transaction log of the restored database, effectively skipping any "future" transactions that were in the distributor prior to the restore.

Be aware that your ELT tool might encounter data consistency issues. Because the publisher has traveled back in time, any transactions that occurred after the backup was taken but before the restore started are gone from the source. However, if those transactions were already captured by the distributor, the ELT tool might still attempt to process them. Depending on how your ELT tool tracks its own progress, you may need to clear the distribution database or perform a fresh metadata sync within the tool itself to ensure it doesn't try to apply changes to the data warehouse that no longer exist in your production source.

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hth

Marcin