Dear pro2003,

My first question is - what're we gonna call you in 2004?

ok - here's one guy's humble opinion:

#1: listen to mccork on hardware - very important - get a REAL server...

#2: ram on pII machines is cheap, ram on REAL servers is not - you might have to fight the management tooth-and-nail on this - get at least 3GB and you'll be set for a while

#3: reporting on the data is equally important as the apps using the db's - don't skimp - here's an idea: get 2 servers, run all the online apps on one, use the other as a failover AND as the box you run reports from - run the reports as a job and output them to disk in crystal in xml format - that way your users don't need individual seat licenses for the reports - it's what we do and the best way to keep the licensing down while still providing dynamic querying of data via the xml...

#4: listen to david.poole - get your backups in order and your replication strategy to your failover box...

#5: if you need help w/development of reports, by all means, contact me - i'm looking for some contract work!

so, why don't you share the licensing wisdom with the group? i'm always looking for as much advice on that subject as possible.

good luck!

eric.