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- MSDE
- MSDE is the Microsoft Data Engine. This is a scaled down version of Microsoft SQL Server 2000 intended primarily for development use or as a backend database for small office systems. While intended to have a lighter load on system resources than an actual installation of Microsoft SQL Server 2000, it is an otherwise functionally identical SQL database engine to its larger sibling. The built in limitations are actually fairly robust for many small business needs. It is limited to a 2GB database, only supports servers up to 2GB RAM and two processors, and doesn’t support advanced SQL Server features such as BI, Reporting Services, Full Text Indexing/Search. The most limiting features of MSDE is the fact that it does not include a GUI management tool and incorporates a performance governor. The lack of a GUI management tool is potentially negated in two ways. First, if you do have a valid license for SQL Server 2000, then you can use the Enterprise Manager tools included with that to manage your MSDE installation. Otherwise there are some freeware and shareware tools that will allow you to manage MSDE more easily. The most significant issue with using MSDE is potentially the performance governor. This artificially limits the performance of the database engine by throttling the number of queries it can process at simultaneously. Although this might not be a significant issue for small business use with a light user load, it does realistically prevent using MSDE for live web sites. While it certainly can be used with a web server for development and testing, it will put an artificial ceiling on a web applications performance levels and should not be used for production use on a live web site.
MSDE has been replaced by Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Express.
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