Difference between SQL versions

[edutech4schools]

I am going to move my school over to Server 2008 from 2003 and also need to upgrade SQL. Our LEA have lots of different versions and I need some help deciding which to get.

 

Currently they have SQL server 2005

The school is a small primary single server setup.

 

The LEA offer

SQL Server Standard Edition 2008 English Licence 1 Processor at over £800

SQL Server Standard Edition 2008 English Licence at over £100

SQL Server Workgroup Edition 2008 - including 5 CAL’s at over £100

 

 

Also do these come in both 32bit and 64bit together?

 

Thanks for taking the time to help.

[Guest TheLibrarian]

Without knowing how many connections / CALs you need it's not really possible to give you much help.

 

You have to ensure that you aren't multiplexing CAL's too. Or at least last time I looked at SQL licensing you weren't allowed to multiplex them.

[localzuk]

Personally, I'd go for Processor licenses (1 per physical processor in the server). Then you don't need CALs - but this depends on the number of CALs you'd need. The normal way to do it is figure out which would be cheaper overall. A couple of processor licenses, or a server license plus required CALs. Also, go for Standard edition, as 'Workgroup' has a limit of 4GB RAM.

[Guest TheLibrarian]

Personally, I'd go for Processor licenses (1 per physical processor in the server). Then you don't need CALs - but this depends on the number of CALs you'd need. The normal way to do it is figure out which would be cheaper overall. A couple of processor licenses, or a server license plus required CALs. Also, go for Standard edition, as 'Workgroup' has a limit of 4GB RAM.

 

As a large seconday school, we go for the processor licenses too, 64Bit Enterprise (at least I think it's Enterprise) so that we can give SQL ~10Gb of RAM.

 

However it may not be the best choice for a small primary.

[localzuk]

As a large seconday school, we go for the processor licenses too, 64Bit Enterprise (at least I think it's Enterprise) so that we can give SQL ~10Gb of RAM.

 

However it may not be the best choice for a small primary.

 

64Bit standard can handle 10GB RAM. The memory limit only exists on Workgroup (4GB) and Express (1GB). The rest are limited only by the memory limit of the server it runs on.

[Guest TheLibrarian]

64Bit standard can handle 10GB RAM. The memory limit only exists on Workgroup (4GB) and Express (1GB). The rest are limited only by the memory limit of the server it runs on.

 

AFAIK some of the programmers here use the extra features in the Enterprise version - I'm not one of them so I'm not sure.

[edutech4schools]

Odd my last post didnt show up.

 

Sims is only used by the office so we would have a max of 4 users.

[Guest TheLibrarian]

Odd my last post didnt show up.

 

Sims is only used by the office so we would have a max of 4 users.

 

Well, if you max at 4 users your third option would be the one to go for - server and 5 CAL's, it may be worth a word with the HT (or whoever) to make sure that there aren't any plans to increase the number of SIMS users.

 

You could go for the second option and add CAL's so that you could go over the 4Gb limit, but you'd have to decide if that was likely in the forseeable future.

[PhilNeal]

SQL Express is free and should be fine for 4 users.

[glennda]

SQL Express is free and should be fine for 4 users.

 

We use sql express for about 200 users atm (and yes its veryyyy slow but predates me) we are upgrading to SQL 2008 standard edition next week!

[localzuk]

We use sql express for about 200 users atm (and yes its veryyyy slow but predates me) we are upgrading to SQL 2008 standard edition next week!

 

Wow. That's pretty impressive. We have about 30 users on a time here and there's many complaints of slowness. 200 must be like waiting for a rock to erode...

[glennda]

Wow. That's pretty impressive. We have about 30 users on a time here and there's many complaints of slowness. 200 must be like waiting for a rock to erode...

 

it took me about 9 mins to login earlier! tbh it vaires between 140-200 depending on times of day etc. it goes really slow when reports are being run. the database is also around the size limit with sql express!