SQL Server 2008 vs 2008 R2 for production - sql-server-2008

I am using a SQL 2008 R2 Express edition. Now that its time to deploy, I need the Standard edition sql server. The database is simple with a million records of addresses which could be queried using google maps with a zip code. Also, it will be storing account information like username and password which are limited(maybe 30-40 accounts). It will be hosted in one server only and once accessible using those account information(not a public web site). I am planning to setup SQL Server authentication. Can any one tell me if 2008 should be enough for my purpose or do I need 2008 R2 for some specific reason? Also 2008 R2 is really expensive compare to 2008. 5 CAL license is enough for me as I will be the only one handling the database. Since, this is my first production deployment, I am not sure what to chose.
Please let me know.

Related

SSRS Data Driven Subscription Option Not Appearing

We have a new 2016 report server. It is supposedly the Enterprise Edition but Data Driven Subscriptions are not available in our PROD database but they are available in our TEST server.
I know that versions lower than the Enterprise Edition do not have Data Driven Subscriptions but our Operations department says that the servers are set up the same.
Unfortunately, I do not have access to check out the server edition (or much else) myself so I can't say for sure that the PROD server is the Enterprise Edition. Our Ops guys haven't done much with SSRS - I had to tell one guy where to set up the e-mail server so the e-mail Destination appeared.
TEST SERVER with data driven subscription:
Is there any reason, other than not having the Enterprise Edition, that could make the Data Driven subscriptions to not appear? Is there a setting or an option that needs to be checked during installation?
There is no setting (as far as I am aware) that would disable the Data Driven Subscription option from appearing on your subscription window by default.
Simple Select ##version in SQL Management Studio against your prod environment and compare it to your test environment.. that should tell you what version straight away.. or connect to the reporting server instance and then look at server properties.. Edition., It's got to be the version!

Moving database files created by SQL Server 2012 Express to SQL Standard 2008

I am planing to built database driven website with DotNetNuke and SQL Server Express 2012 on my laptop and than host it on web server that has SQL Server 2008 Standard edition.
Is SQL Server 2008 compatible with database files created by Server 2012?
Because I can install and build website using SQL Server 2008 Express Edition and upload to hosting provider server.
Is SQL Server 2008 compatible with database files created by Server
2012?
NO.
SQL Server database files are never backwards compatible - if you create a database on SQL Server 2012 - there is no way, no hack, no trick, no method to get this to be able to be restored or attached on an earlier version (e.g. 2008 / 2008 R2) of SQL Server.
No and it doesn't make much sense if you think about it. If it was the other way around, "maybe" it could be done (I actually never tried) because 2012 would somehow be aware of 2008 structure, but 2008 engine isn't aware of 2012 DB structure.

Analysis Services 2008 configuration for OWC 10

We're upgrading a data warehouse from SQL Server 2000 to 2008 R2. A favorite user reporting tool is a web site using OWC 10 (Office Web Components) -- it's basically ASPX pages connected to the Analysis Services 2000 database via the OWC object.
We migrated the warehouse SQL tables and Analysis Services database into 2008. I'm trying to get the OWC10 web site to connect to the 2008 R2 Analysis Services. I changed the ASPX connection definitions to the new server, and can see them in debug messages. However the web page gives me the error "Cannot connect to the server 'blahblah.blah.com' The server is either not started or too busy."
I suspect there are permissions or security setups required to open up Analysis Services 2008 for OWC10 queries. Has anyone done this or similar? Any ideas where to look?
Thanks.
change the provider in the connection string to MSOLAP.4 instead of the default MSOLAP.2

Can I make SQL 2008 Management Studio validate code for SQL 2005?

We have a production database running on SQL 2005. We are using SQL 2008 Management Studio. The issue we are having is that some of the stored procedures/functions we write get code that is compatible with SQL 2008, but not with SQL 2005. The newer management studio doesn't flag this as an error, but when we try to deploy a version, we get a large amount of errors. Is there any way to get 2008 Management Studio to validate code for compatibility?
Thanks!
Even if you are using Management Studio 2008, you dev database should match the prod one. It is an extremely poor idea to develop against a 2008 databse when your prod database is 2005. You can still hook to 2005 databases in management studio 2008. Then you will find out immediately that the code doesn't work. In fact if you are attached to a 2005 database, it will only let you use 2005 syntax. We attached to 2000 database for a long time until we got all the servers upgraded and it wouldn't let us write 2008 specific code as long as the database we attached to was 2000.
If, for some reason (and I stringly recommend against it), you will continue to develop against a 2008 database, I also suggest you look in Book Online for the new features of 2008 and make sure all your devs know which features they should NEVER use. Make sure your code reviewers check code against the list.
You can set the Compatibility Level to SQL Server 2005 (90) under the Options section of the database properties.
Right click the database, select Properties, and then select Options.

Installing RS2008 against SQL Server 2000

Is there any chance of installing Reporting Services 2008 against an instance of SQL Server 2000? The docs clearly state that only SQL Server 2005 or 2008 are supported, but I thought I should ask anyway, for ways to bypass this limitation.
I should mention that I am not talking about the data source for my reports (which is a remote data source that can be any type of sql server). I am interested in the databases where the report server stores its things.
No, the reportserver and reportservertempdb REQUIRE 2005 or 2008. You could source data for your reports from a 2000 instance, but your reporting services databases need to be 2005 or 2008.
see: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms157285.aspx and read the section on Database Server Version Requirements
I have no idea if this would work, however reporting services also depends on the SQL Server Agent service (for subscriptions) as well as the relational databases, so both would need to be compatible. If you have Reporting Services 2008 then you (or your organisation) must own a SQL Server 2008 license of some sort, therefore I cannot see why you would ever want to do this since you can install the SQL 2008 database engine to support your report server (on the same server, otherwise you would need an additional license).
Bear in mind that as of April 2008 SQL Server 2000 is no longer in mainstream support from Microsoft, so you should avoid implementing new infrastructure or functionality using this version wherever possible. The configuration you describe above, even if you got it to work, would be unsupported by Microsoft and probably all ISVs and partners.