Client collation and SQL Server 2005

Question

We're upgrading an existing program from Win2k/SQL Server 2k to Windows 2003 and SQL Server 2005 as well as purchasing a new program that also uses 2k3/2k5. The vendor says that for us to host both databases we need to get the Enterprise version because the softwares clients use different collation for the connections and only Enterprise supports this.

I cannot find anything on MS's site to support this and, honestly, don't want to pay the extra for Enterprise if the Standard edition works. Am I missing some not talked about feature of SQL Server or is this, as I suspect, a vendor trying to upsell me?

Answer 1

All editions of SQL Server 2000/2005/2008 support having multiple databases, each using their own collation sequence. You don't need the Enterprise version.

When you have a database that uses a collation sequence that is different from default collation for the database server, you will need to take some extra precautions if you use temporary tables and/or table variables. Temp tables/variables live in the tempdb database, which uses the collation seqyuence used by by the master databases. Just remember to use "COLLATE database_default" when defining character fields in the temp tables/variables. I blogged about that not too long ago, if you want some more details.

Answer 2

This is what I figured but I just wanted to be sure since I don't deal with SQL Server much. It didn't make much sense to me that it would be that temperamental about multiple databases.