SQL Server Express for production website?

[thunderlizard]

Am trying to find a home for a website with a SQL server database. Lots of hosting services are planning on using the Express edition (mainly 2005, but some 2008). At first I thought that looked like very shabby shenanigans, but now I'm not so sure.

Let's say I can cope with the missing functionality (Agent and Full Text Search); can keep under the 4GB size limit; and can get by on daily backups...is there any reason why we shouldn't use it in prod?

[PAH]

I imagine the RAM limit (1gb), single CPU (though can be multi-core) and no parallel queries would be the issues to worry about. Depends how heavy your usage is likely to be and if it's a shared environment where others will be trying to also share the same instance of SQL Server.


BTW 'SQL Server Express 2008 with Advanced Services' has Full-Text search included:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/d...displaylang=en

[Durbs]

is there any reason why we shouldn't use it in prod?

Nope. It is licensed to do so and assuming the hardware limitations aren't an issue (and realistically for 90% of apps it wont be, certainly not a website unless you are running Amazon) then go for it.

Worked for permi Co for a while and they were running very high volume, very busy ecommerce apps on Express - no problems at all.

[Zippy]

Am trying to find a home for a website with a SQL server database. Lots of hosting services are planning on using the Express edition (mainly 2005, but some 2008). At first I thought that looked like very shabby shenanigans, but now I'm not so sure.

Let's say I can cope with the missing functionality (Agent and Full Text Search); can keep under the 4GB size limit; and can get by on daily backups...is there any reason why we shouldn't use it in prod?

No.

[DimPrawn]

You'll have no problems.

The biggest limitation in my mind is the 4GB database limit, but actually for most web sites/ web applications this is not an issue unless you are storing lots of binary objects (images, video, etc) directly in the DB.

And of course you have a simple and seamless upgrade to the full standard edition which costs about £4000 per processor.

And people say MS are greedy.

[thunderlizard]

Good stuff. I'll give it a go.
I'll also look forward to lots of data migration projects for small businesses, when Microsoft revises that particular license option.

[centurian]

SQL express does lack a few features as you have mentioned. Profiler is another that springs to mind.

There are ways around these things, but any workaround will have it's own learning curve, so bear this in mind if you think it will be an issue.

But yes, the majority of small applications will run fine on SQL Express. Current ClientCo has a few production apps running it.