SQL Lite, Express, Standard or Enterprise?

[Jroper]

What criteria should you use when deciding on a level of SQL when starting a project for Plant?  At our company, we seem to be growing out of the free SQL Lite version.  We have had significant slowdown and we think the next step is to upgrade our level of SQL from the free Lite to Standard.  But there are licensing costs and migrating a project from Lite to a full version will take time from project work.  Is there a guideline that we could have followed from the start?  For instance, if you have X amount of users and you have Y amount of drawings then use SQL Z?

[dgorsman]

SQL Express is free, and we're using it for work more complex than Plant3D.  The good news is that it is readily scalable up to the paid versions (well, maybe a *little* work involved but a SQL manager can handle that).

If your company is running other database-dependant software, then the licensed Standard or Enterprise may be worth the extra costs involved, distribute the costs across the different departments.  I recommend you sit down in person with your IT and a SQL Server expert (if your IT department doesn't have one already) to discuss what each "flavor" can give you with respect to cost.

[Jroper]

Thank you for the quick response.  We are thinking of going with Standard as Enterprise seems prohibitively expensive.  Luckily, we do have an SQL expert.  Quick follow up:  Is SQL 2012 compatible with Plant 2013?  All of the documentation seems to show 2008 but 2012 should be compatible.  Is SQL 2008 a safer bet in your opinion?

[dgorsman]

Enterprise is for the really, REALLY big and data-intensive stuff which generates the revenue necessary for those eye-popping costs.

We're running 2008 for everything here, although its more from inertia than requirements.  Version migration requires dedicated IT support and its functioning so its not a high priority for now.  If you don't already have a SQL Server system up and running, then starting with the 2012 version will probably give you longer life before you need to do that migration - you can guarantee when that time comes IT will be in the middle of something else as well.  And, as always, test the *#$#*$ out of it before starting money-making work with it.

Good luck, let us know of any potholes you fall into 🙂

[Anonymous]

On a similar note, does anyone know a better way of managing all the sql databases the program generates when linking to the sql.

For example, we have several LARGE projects which run on SQL and each one of those projects create 4 databases in sql. So if we have say 7 projects, we have 28 databases we need to manage, aka add users, access rights etc.

Any ideas on ways to make this easier?

Thanks

[Anonymous]

Hi,

Did you have success running Plant 2013 on SQL Server 2012?

Bruce

[Jroper]

We did have success with setting up an SQL instance.  We had an expert in SQL help us out.  That made a huge difference.

edit - it was 2012 instead of 2008 I believe.  We are running 2014 Plant now too.

[Jroper]

Scratch that.  It was SQL Standard Server 2008 R2 (no service pack).