Choosing A Method Of Updating HA Database

Lets assume database A is production, B is copy. SQL Server 2005 sp2, SQL CE 3.5

Database A has a variety of transactions against it 24x7
Database B (the copy) is for reporting and as a source of merge replication for SQL CE instances
Merge replication and reporting is used 24x7 as well

I have the following requirements:
Maintain an up to date copy of the production database (need not be up to the minute, could be hourly, even daily update)
Database B is read-only. The merge replication is NOT bi-directional.

Here is the caveat (which I think prohibits using some solutions to this problem):
The production application accomplishes much of it's functionality with in-memory copies of records. I have no control over the production application. When it works against the database, it sort of does a 'withdrawal-deposit' scenario. (to the best of my knowledge it's not using SQL Server transactions) So, for every record it works with, a copy is made out of the database, changes are made in memory, a delete of the database record is done, then the record is re-inserted.

With this kind of behavior in db A, I'm not sure what it would do to log-shipping or transactional replication. I do know that I want to minimize the changes required at the SQL CE instances to keep the sync operation to a minimal cost.


Any suggestions?