According to the deployment guide, there are several replication alarms that can be used or set. A Replication - Agent Failure alarm is raised when a SQL Server replication agent fails. The alarms are:
Replication - Distribution Agent Failure Alarm
Replication - Log Reader Agent Failure Alarm
Replication - Merge Agent Failure Alarm
Replication - Miscellaneous Agent Failure Alarm
Replication - Queue Reader Agent Failure Alarm
Replication - Snapshot Agent Failure Alarm
When a replication agent fails, the replication of your data can be interrupted. It is best to investigate the problem as soon as possible to minimize the amount of work required to reestablish proper replication.
When the alarm is raised
Look at the SQL Server Replication | Activity Drilldown | Actions page to see the messages returned by the agent. The Actions grid shows the details of the messages logged by the agent. This may help you diagnose the exact task on which an agent failed.
To display the Actions grid:
On the Activity drilldown, click the Agents tab.
In the Agents grid, select the affected agent.
Click the Session tab.
In the Session grid, select the affected session.
Once the problem is resolved the agent can be re-started using SQL Server Enterprise Manager or SQL Server Management Studio.
All the Agents are SQL Agent jobs so, if they are monitoring the instance where the replication distributor is located they can go to that connection and select Support Services from the ribbon.
