Yes sorry, it will be MS SQL 2000 to MS SQL 2000, and eventually 2008 to 2008.
yeah, I know how to restore/backup - just want to automate it.
I think replication is the most similar thing I can compare what I want to do. However, i do not want to delete something locally whilst testing for it to delete on the live server, which i beleive is what would happen with replication?