SQL Express as a main DB

Question

Hi everyone,

Does anyone out there use SQL Express 2008 R2 in a production environment?

I am looking at hosting a Windows VPS as a server for a client software product I have developed.

Clients connect to the server, send their data to a service running on the server, and the service updates the database.

I'm trying to keep running costs down, and whilst I have a license for SQL Developer I obviously can't use this in a production environment.

Would it be wise/possible to use SQL Express 2008, and if so why/why not?

Thanks,

JD

Answer 1

What do customers pay for? Access to your software?

Bad news: your windows license is also invalid - you need SPLA.

Anyhow, under SPLA you can license a web edition of SQL Server. That said, it is perfectly ok to use the express edition as long as IT IS GOOD ENOUGH, technically. It has some limitations, but if you for exampl sell something like quickbooks -4gb is a LOT of space for financial transactions ;) Your mileage may wary.

Answer 2

I’m using 2008R2 in a production environment and so long as you stay within the limits then you will be fine. One very important thing to note is the DB size limit is now 10GB in express (up from 4GB) However all the other limits stay in place i.e. CPU usage and memory used for the buffer pool.

Just for some more info, this project is an online multiple choice testing system so I’m not storing a huge amount of data but I am storing lots of rows. One of the requirements was to host power point presentation and other reading materials, for that I used the filestream feature because files stored using filestream don’t count towards the 4GB/10GB size limit