Comparing Standard Editions of SQL Server

Great post - could you add 2005 Standard to the chart?

Thanks for the post

Although I'd say upgrading from SQL 2008 Std to 2012 Std is not a big leap, especially the leap in licensing $$ (per socket to per core)

@jerryhung it is only a big leap if you have > 4-core processors. For most users, the "leap" is horizontal, since a core license in 2012 is about 1/4 the price of a processor license in 2008. In 2012 it is $1,793 per core; in 2008 it was $7,499 per processor. So if you have processors with <= 4 cores, your cost has actually gone down a bit, by my math.

Also as for whether or not it is a "leap" I point out several of the enhancements you get even in Standard Edition here:

http://dba.stackexchange.com/questions/14730/what-are-objective-business-reasons-to-prefer-sql-server-2012-over-2008-r2/14731#14731

Database Mirroring (synchronous mode) is available in Standard Edition from SQL Server 2005 to SQL Server 2012.

Database Mirroring is going away and the future is AlwaysOn Availability Groups. AlwaysOn Availability Groups is only available in Enterprise Edition.

"AlwaysOn Availability Groups"

"If your edition of SQL Server does not support AlwaysOn Availability Groups, use log shipping."

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms143729.aspx

It is annoying that, as a Microsoft partner, we get offered all sorts of training that we can attend, but all of that training seems to focus on features only in the Enterprise Edition.  We're an ISV who sometimes have trouble getting standard edition purchased by our clients.  Only one runs the Enterprise Edition and that's because they're government.  Thank you for talking about standard edition :)

Part of our software now requires at least SQL 2008 R2 becuase of the nice changes to reporting services there - specifically shared datasets, cross-dataset lookups and the "sync data across groups" functionality which makes time-series graphs down the page, one per group, a doddle.  That alone is worth the price of upgrading for me as a developer / report writer.

The gee-whiz reporting stuff, such as PowerPivot/PowerViewer, need SharePoint and Enterprise Edition (or BI edition I suppose).  I can convince client IT to let us set up and manage an instance of SQL but SharePoint, apart from its cost, is a battle I'd lose due to stubborn IT :P

@Aaron: In my _home_ computer I have 4 cores!

Imagine you have any of the new intel procs with 10 Cores and two processors server... Welcome To License price HELL and if you need more than 64GB of RAM you will simply be out of luck.

--> Enterprise Edition is simply too expensive.

You could spend $25K on a new HW and your license could be $140K,

go figure ( http://www.brentozar.com/archive/2012/06/i-learned-at-msteched-north-america-last-week/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+BrentOzar-SqlServerDba+%28Brent+Ozar+PLF%29 )

@RickHeiges:

Standard Edition in SQL 2008 Had _no_ memory limits, that was introduced in R2

I find it interesting that you find the key benifit of core server "reduced patching".

Yes, regardless of automation, patches take time, but for me the reduced vulnerability footprint of less code, which is the cause of less patching and less ability to waste server resources through things like RDP sessions are the real wins.

Then again, maybe because I'm a developer, not a DBA. I don't have to apply the patches.

SQL 2008 Standard was limited in the number of CPUs and the amount of memory to that of the Host operating system.

I am currently running SQL 2008 Standard with 24 cores and 136 gig of ram.