Microsoft Windows SQL Server 2008 Editions come with so many flavors oriented to different kind of clients and needs. It starts with SQL Server Compact Edition with almost no footprint, ideal for mobile applications, and become more and more powerful that it could handle petabytes of data or millions of concurrent users. This is one reason for SQL Server to be called Database Platform instead of the traditional relational database management system (RDBMS).
Flavors? Which ones?
SQL Server 2008 Enterprise Edition, for the largest organizations
SQL Server 2008 Workgroup Edition, suited for small interdepartmental projects that need a very low set of features
SQL Server 2008 Standard Edition, for midsize to small organizations with no needs for Enterprise Edition features
SQL Server 2008 Express Edition, a very powerful free version suited for small web applications
SQL Server 2008 Developer Edition, for us but with no availability for being install on production environments
SQL Server 2008 Compact Edition, an embed database
SQL Server 2008 Evaluation Edition (180 days), not allowed to be used in production environments but fully functional for the Enterprise Evaluation (included for developers and DBA administrators)
As rule of thumb, DEE (Developer, Enterprise and Evaluation) are the same, but Evaluation and Developer are not allowed to be used in production environments (and Evaluation expires in 180 days), but their available set of features are all the same.
From now on I will resume where and how each one could fit better, and also which of SQL Server Services (Analysis Services, Service Broker, Integration Services, Reporting Services, and so on…) will be needed before installation, for fulfillment of your organization needs!
In example, Service Broker deals with amazing ways to communicate with queued messages, with asynchronous data processing capabilities. You can provide advanced business process orchestration handling data processing across a myriad of platforms sources, without the need for the user to wait for process completion, or any other impacts.
Talking a little bit of SSIS (Integration Services) we can conclude that is a perfect step-up for old Data Transformation Services (Extract, Transform and Load or ETL). It uses workflows to evaluate if tasks fails or succeed to keep routing new tasks to be perform. If SSIS doesn´t have the tasks you need to work with, SQL integration with Visual Studio Tools for Applications let you create your own CLR (Common Language Runtime) processes to run and complete those tasks not included in SQL Server Integration Services platform. Even though you can create your own executable or assembly to be registered and executed inside SSIS!
When we are worried about reporting tasks, SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS ) comes to play hard with two main components, the report server and the report designer. The report server hosts and secures all the generated reports (on the fly or scheduled automatic generation). When users requested for reports, the report server is responsible for connecting to the underlying data sources, gathering data, and rendering the report into the final presentation output. Rendering requires the report designer, which is responsible for all the activities involved in creating and debugging reports. Components are included that allow users to create both simple tabular or matrix reports and more complex reports with multiple levels of sub reports, nested reports, charts, linked reports, and links to external resources.
When IT is requested for solving too many questions work loads become time consuming. SQL Server Analysis Services (SSAS) was created to fill the gap between the data needs of business users and the ability of IT people to provide data solutions. SSAS is comprised of two main components:
Online Analytical Processing (OLAP) and Data Mining services. You need to master a little bit of SQL Server Business Intelligence (SSBI) to create cubes and other BI objects.
For further reviews on these and other topics, I do recommend Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Step by Step (Microsoft Press, 2008), this book is very well designed and an easy companion with SQL Server 2008 learning.
If you are going to take Exam 70-432 you should understand the editions, their features available, hardware support and requirements, and also the final purpose of the flavor itself (it depends on all the features discussed above).
It´s true that this subject is very exciting and than only words cannot accomplish the learning needs all we have. The next issues will be more interactive, with some exercises, examples and SQL code, when possible…
Thanks again for visiting this blog, please remember that your suggestions, opinions, points of view, and your valuable knowledge are all welcome to this place…
Best regards
Jaime Gibertoni
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