SQL Server 2005 Express - a better MSDE....

Over the years I have worked with a number of ISVs that have needed a client side small footprint RDBMS – and found most of what they were looking for in MSDE. Whilst there is plenty of goodness in MSDE for this scenario, it also gave some challenges – commonly in the area of the throttling (the governor) we built into MSDE to limit how well the engine will handle queries coming in from multiple sources.

Things are about to change for the good. We recently announced SQL Server 2005 Express and made available for download a preview of the product. It has many of the great features you will have heard about SQL Server 2005 – but in a tiny and free format.

What did we do with throttling – simple – removed it 100%! Yes there are cpu, memory and size limits but the engine will now do its darndest to handle whatever workload you throw at it as efficiently as possible. Oh – and we add a management console and xcopy deployment. We do listen – eventually :-)

Finally, if you are one of the many folks I have met who missed out on Beta 1 of SQL Server 2005 and don’t want to wait a little longer for Beta 2, then download Express today – it will allow you to try out many of the new features including CLR Integration and the XML data type.