Anyone familiar with MSDE 2000? 1

[aamaker]

I recently picked up an asp.net book that had a cd rom with tools/code on it... it has a database engine (Microsoft SQL Server 2000 Desktop Engine (MSDE 2000) but it doesnt have a GUI or any tools to work with databases or manage them....

Questions:

is anyone using this and able to refer any free-ware GUI tools that I can use with this?

does any one know if there are limitations such as concurrent users/connections, etc. that I am dealing with when using a database / datasource like this?

Thanks

 

[gmmastros]

MSDE is the same database engine as Micrsoft SQL Server. It's very powerful, very stable, and very fast.

There are some limitations with it, though.

1. Any single database is limited to 2 gigabytes.
2. Performance degrades after there are more than 5 concurrent connections.

Microsoft does this intentionally. You see, they want developers to use MSDE to build their apps. Then, when more and more users start using the database, and performance slows down... The simplest way to improve performance would be to purchase SQL Server. SQL Server is not cheap, but it is fast.

My company uses it for our product. If the customer already has SQL Server, they can use that instead. If they decide to upgrade to SQL Server after using MSDE for a while, all they need to do is detach the database, copy it to the SQL Server machine, and reattach the database. Then, as a last step, configure the client app software to connect to the new SQL Server machine instead. The best part is... you don't need to change ANY code. None. Nothing. Not a single line.

I'm not sure if I would use MSDE in an ASP environment though. It's easy to imagine that the concurrent connections would be greater than 5 and performance would start to degrade. BTW, Access has similar performance problems. With Access, the theoretical limit is 255 users, but in practice, I found it to be more like 5 or 6.

As far as freeware gui tools... There are none that I am aware of. But since I have SQL Server and therefore Enterprise manager and Query Analyzer, I never had reason to go looking.

Hope this helps.

-George

Strong and bitter words indicate a weak cause. - Fortune cookie wisdom

 

[way2many]

free-ware GUI tools?

Here you go:

http://www.ms-inc.net/database.aspx?ProductID=dbManager

http://www.rac4sql.net/qalite_main.asp

http://www.asql.biz/DbaMgr.shtm

Please, let me know which one did you choose (if any).

 

[Sheco]

If you can... get your hands on the actual SQL Server Enterprise Manager.

Since MSDE is merely a gimped version of SQL Server you can use all of the snazzy tools that MS makes for SQL Server.

 

[a6m1n0]

You can download the Micrsoft SQL Server 2000 Trial Version and install Enterprise Manager without installing the trial version of SQL Server 2000. It works with MSDE fine.

http://www.microsoft.com/sql/evaluation/trial/

 

[Sheco]

And to think of all the shameless arsekissing I had to do to get a copy of these tools for my home box.

A star for you!

 

[a6m1n0]

Thanks Sheco!