Requirements

To make full use of this book, you will need access to a server running one of the following editions of SQL Server 2005 (with either 32-bit or 64-bit support):

• Enterprise Edition Supports all features and scales to enterprise level

• Standard Edition Scales to the level of departmental servers; supports up to four CPUs

• Workgroup Edition Scales to the level of workgroup server; limited to usage of two CPUs and database size of up to 3GB

• Evaluation Edition Supports all features of Enterprise Edition; use is limited to 120 days; available for download over the Web

• Developer Edition Supports all features of Enterprise Edition but has a different licensing policy

Stored Procedure Programming Requirements

You can also perform most of the stored procedure programming-oriented activities described in this book using a stand-alone PC with Windows 2000 Professional or Windows XP Pro to run one of the following versions of Microsoft SQL Server 2000:

• Express Edition Designed for mobile or stand-alone users and applications; does not support some advanced features, such as fail-over clustering, Web Services, Integration Services, or Full-Text Search; it can utilize only a single CPU; size of individual database is limited to 1GB; its licensing supports free distribution as part of your custom systems and applications.

• Developer Edition Licensed to be used only as a development and test server, although it supports all features of Enterprise Edition.

Although Express Edition is compatible with all other versions of SQL Server 2005 and thus makes an excellent development tool in a stand-alone environment, the absence of administrative tools such as SQL Server Management Studio means that some of the information you find in this book will not be usable right away. I recommend that you obtain some other version (such as Developer Edition or Evaluation Edition) or buy a Server/Per-Seat Client Access License (CAL) that will allow you to use administrative tools against Express Edition.

Note 

Microsoft has released SQL Server Management Studio Express that could he used to manage Express Edition instances, hut it is too simple and inconvenient. You should upgrade.

.NET Programming Requirements

To explore and use .NET programming features, you need to install and use the following:

• Any version of SQL Server 2005

• .NET Framework 2.0

Installation of Visual Studio 2005 .NET is recommended but not required.