February 13, 2008 at 1:35 pm
For critical systems running SQL 2000 I've always believed the development, QA and production instances should all be the same edition of SQL Server. I didn't want to take a chance of something performing differently in development then in QA and production due to dev being Standard Edition and QA and production being Enterprise Edition.
For SQL Server 2005 would you agree with this approach? I'm only referring to critical systems. Non-critical I am willing to take the chance.
What are your thoughts?
Dave
February 13, 2008 at 1:39 pm
With the caveat that Developer Edition = Enterprise Edition (meaning the only difference between the two is that I'm not "allowed" licensing-wise to use it in production) - I would tend to agree. don't open yourself up to issue due to not being able to roll something out.
Of course - since all of my critical systems ARE Enterprise Edition, that tends to skew this answer a little:).
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Your lack of planning does not constitute an emergency on my part...unless you're my manager...or a director and above...or a really loud-spoken end-user..All right - what was my emergency again?
February 13, 2008 at 1:40 pm
For dev why not use developer edition? it has all the functionality of enterprise and will save you lots of $$$
February 13, 2008 at 1:51 pm
We purchased SQL Server 2005 Developer Edition for our development and QA environments, and SQL Server 2005 Enterprise Edition for our production environemnts. I would say, even for non-critical systems, your dev, QA, and production environments should be using the same edition (or in this equivelent as DE = EE, except for licensing). If your production systems are using standard edition, you should probably be developing in standard edition to ensure that you don't attempt to use a feature not available in standard. Also, if developing in DE and production is EE, your QA should also be DE/EE, else you may have issues in QA.
hth.:cool:
February 13, 2008 at 2:00 pm
I think I misunderstood, and this is going back a few years, how developer edition is used. I always thought it was a stand alone license for a single developer, but it appears I was incorrect.
Do you see no issue with using this in a QA environment as well?
Dave
February 13, 2008 at 2:04 pm
No - you are correct in that there are definite differences in licensing. Dev Edition is per user (no server component whatsoever). So you'd need to license/buy Dev. edition for each person consistently involved in development, testing and QA. (meaning - people dedicated to being your testers or a QA team).
But still - @ 50$ per user, that's a lot of users before you get to any kind of break-even point.
Edit all of that: The page just CHANGED. it's now 49$ PER PROCESSOR. interesting. I can't seem to find the earlier info I had.
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Your lack of planning does not constitute an emergency on my part...unless you're my manager...or a director and above...or a really loud-spoken end-user..All right - what was my emergency again?
February 13, 2008 at 2:10 pm
I think that anyone with Visual Studio 2005 also gets a sql 2005 developer license thrown in with that, so thats probably a few less licenses you would need.
February 13, 2008 at 2:25 pm
To expand a little. We installed SQL Server 2005 DE on a development server (don't have our QA servers yet). We purchased one copy of SQL Server 2005 DE for each developer. We only have a few developers/DBA's and we got a nice discout, so the cost was not very much, and it works out well.
February 13, 2008 at 2:25 pm
Well - as I mentioned earlier - I'm now confused.
There's conflicting info as to how developer edition is to be licensed. From the "How to buy FAQ", it says:
Q. What is SQL Server 2005 Developer Edition and how is it licensed?
A. SQL Server 2005 Developer Edition is licensed per developer and must be used for designing, developing, and testing purposes only.
However - from the "Editions Pricing" - it's 49$ per processor, with the following note
"May be installed and used by one user to design, develop, test and demonstrate your programs on as many systems as needed. " The note seems to agree with the Q & A, but the pricing doesn't. What gives?
I'm thinking they still mean the same thing (meaning per user only), and that whoever put the pricing page together was just drinking heavily that day, but - it's REALLY bad presentation if that is true....
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Your lack of planning does not constitute an emergency on my part...unless you're my manager...or a director and above...or a really loud-spoken end-user..All right - what was my emergency again?
February 13, 2008 at 2:31 pm
I'm certain I read something like that for SQL 2000 years ago that made me believe it was a one user edition. Our other DBA thought the same thing I did. We both learned something new today.
I called Microsoft and confirmed that it can be used by more then one developer, provided each has a development license.
For QA a user does not need a developer license if all they are doing is testing. If they modify any content (objects or code), then they need a license.
Good to know, although I wish I realized this about 7 years ago.
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