SQL Server Replication provides multi-faceted data movement capabilities across SQL Server releases which has been used by customers across the globe for a large number of years. When moving from one major release of SQL Server to another, replication topology upgrade has been a constant topic of lengthy discussions. In this post, we shall outline some of the challenges of upgrading SQL Server replication environments to SQL Server 2016. The requirements of upgrading a replication topology need to abide by the following guidelines:
A Distributor can be any version as long as it is greater than or equal to the Publisher version (in many cases the Distributor is the same instance as the Publisher). A Publisher can be any version as long as it less than or equal to the Distributor version. Subscriber version depends on the type of publication: A Subscriber to a transactional publication can be any version within two versions (n-2) of the Publisher version. For example: a SQL Server 2012 Publisher can have SQL Server 2014 and SQL Server 2016 Subscribers; and a SQL Server 2016 Publisher can have SQL Server 2014 and SQL Server 2012 Subscribers. A Subscriber to a merge publication can be any version less than or equal to the Publisher version.Read the entire article here, Upgrading a Replication Topology to SQL Server 2016 mssql Tiger Team
via the fine folks at Microsoft