SQL Server Express for ICT students

[sidewinder]

I've had a request from one of the 6th form ICT students, via his ICT teacher, to have SQL Server Express installed on all the ICT machines, as they apparantly need it.

 

My question is, do they? We currently have Visual Studio 2008 (to be upgraded to 2010 over summer) and I'm sure that it included some sort of basic SQL server for use in development? (to be fair we may not have installed it) Would that be enough?

 

Just not really sure I want 60+ SQL servers on our network. If the above is incorrect, would a single server that students could put their databases on be better?

[powdarrmonkey]

Set it up in a single instance on a server and create a database for each student on it.

[kmount]

Server instance would be far better.

 

Your argument for this is that if kids move around they might fancy keeping their databases.

[srochford]

If you've done a full install of Visual Studio 2008 (or 2010) then you will have SQL installed.

 

I'd definitely recommend putting it on a server for the students to use. You need to find out exactly what they're wanting to do. If they need to be able to create databases (which is quite reasonable) then you may be better having multiple instances (name them with the student usernames??) because you can then make the student the owner of the databases and they can't accidentally or deliberately mess up other people's work.

 

If they're just going to create/modify/delete tables then giving them each a database on the same SQL server should be fine.

[featured_spectre]

Server instance once again. No need for each child to have there own individual databases when a server instance will easily cover all of there needs.