Standard versus Enterprise

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Standard versus Enterprise

Kris-155042

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July 27, 2004 at 7:53 am

#83451

Hi,

I'm currently a fairly new DBA. I have around 50 Databases anywhere between 20Mb and 24Gb per database. I'm trying to convince my CEO and IT GM that we should have SQL enterprise.

Can someone give me some reasons why Standard SQL is not good enough compared to Enterprise SQL when around 20 of the DB's are critical to the business, apart from clustering?

Thanks for your help.

Thanks,

Kris

Viewing 6 posts - 1 through 5 (of 5 total)

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Robbac Ten Centuries Points: 1090 More actions · Answer 1

Hi Kris!

There are some differences between the two, but not that much. You have i.e. log-shipping in enterprise edition and:

Enterprise: 32 processors, 64 gb memory

Standard: 4 processors, 2 gb memory

Both edition has a maximum dbsize of 1,048,516 terabytes.

Have a look at Microsoft for spec.

http://www.microsoft.com/sql/evaluation/overview/default.asp

If not using any of the functions in enterprise, and I have max 4procs and 2gb memory, I would personally stick to standard edition.

Maybe not the answer you looked for

robbac
___the truth is out there___

David.Poole SSC Guru Points: 75656 More actions · Answer 2

The enterprise edition is one hell of a lot of money for......not really that much unless you are into major league stuff.

I would work out precisely what it is that you want to do with the features of the Enterprise edition.

Do you need more than 2Gb RAM?
Are you going to be getting involved in clustering?
Indexed views?
Log shipping (although it is not that hard to roll your own)?

If you are looking at it from a "gain experience" perspective then consider getting and additional development edition. Basically a throttled back Enterprise edition with all the features but a cap on the number of users/performance.

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Kris-155042 Hall of Fame Points: 3447 More actions · Answer 3

Thanks for that.

These are also the only reasons I found, I just thought there had to be more to it considering the cost involved.

The main two issues I was looking at it was redundancy and memory.

Can you tell me how you can have redundancy with Standard edition. I currenly have two servers set up as publisher and subscriber method. Is this the best/only way you can have redundancy on Standard edition?

The other 4 servers just run as stand alone SQL servers.

Thanks,

Kris

Robbac Ten Centuries Points: 1090 More actions · Answer 4

Hi!

One "easy" way to have a redundancy without having the cost of enterprise edition and clustering is to on a scheduled basis move db-backups and logs from one server to another and restore them. Or do like you do now, use replication.

When choosing method for redundency you have to have a cost of how much your data is worth from CEO and IT GM and if the cost for a "real" redundency is worth the cost or not...

robbac
___the truth is out there___

Keith Edwards Default port Points: 1446 More actions · Answer 5

Hello,

I kind of had an expansion of Kris's original question. Currently we are planning to buy a new SQL 2000 server for department use and setup another one for use with GIS data. I have been asked if we can get by with using Standard edition? I am curious as to what would really push the decision over the edge to justify spending the money on four processor Enterprise licensing? It was initially assumed we would need Enterprise licensing until management saw the price tag. Can anyone give me any more ideas of what to consider besides the Microsoft white papers? Currently I am leaning towards recommending Standard for both since it would be a third of the cost. thanks for any help or comments.

Keith