Scope of License, SQL Server 2005 Express

I have designed an application that spread their data over several
databases.
Actually, it spread its data over several servers, each one with
several dozens of databases each. There's just one single
server/database that acts as a root directory of where the information
(server/database) is stored.
Someone pointed me in other place, that I might be violating the scope
of license respecting this:
4. SCOPE OF LICENSE. The software is licensed, not sold. This
agreement only gives you some rights to use the software. blah, blah,
blahblah, blah, blah
* disclose the results of any benchmark blah, blah, blah
* work around any technical limitations in the software;
<<<<--This is the point!!
Do you think by this design I am workarounding the technical
limitations of the software !?
I thought that section was refering to something like hacking or
cracking the software, but not to a clever design ...
What do you think ?Its questionable if the design you described is really clever. But I
guess, the sentence of MS is just about telling that you are not
allowed to break the limitation in terms of hacking the software.
HTH, Jens K. Suessmeyer.
http://www.sqlserver20095.de
--|||Thanks for your opinion about the terms of the software.
Respecting how clever or not, what potential problems do you see with
it ?
Or what would you do with the need of storage 2TB without budget other
than renting servers? mysql ?
Regards,
Jens wrote:
> Its questionable if the design you described is really clever. But I
> guess, the sentence of MS is just about telling that you are not
> allowed to break the limitation in terms of hacking the software.
>
> HTH, Jens K. Suessmeyer.
> --
> http://www.sqlserver20095.de
> --|||craigkenisston@.hotmail.com wrote:
> Thanks for your opinion about the terms of the software.
> Respecting how clever or not, what potential problems do you see with
> it ?
> Or what would you do with the need of storage 2TB without budget other
> than renting servers? mysql ?
>
craigkenisston@.hotmail.com wrote:
> Thanks for your opinion about the terms of the software.
> Respecting how clever or not, what potential problems do you see with
> it ?

> Or what would you do with the need of storage 2TB without budget other
> than renting servers? mysql ?
Renting servers won't get you far. Not unless you plan to develop,
administer and operate the system for free.
Apparently you don't have a budget for software, perhaps because your
budget holder is naive enough to think that "free" software must cost
less than software you have to pay for. Maybe you are about to prove
how wrong he is. Surely the cost of creating and supporting 500+
databases (2TB/4GB) and multiple servers will far exceed the cost of a
server licence (Workgroup Edition starts at around $700). I suspect the
1GB memory constraint of Express Edition might also become a problem
for you. Of course I can't say whether you are right or wrong, much
less propose alternatives because I know nothing of your business or
your requirements.
David Portas, SQL Server MVP
Whenever possible please post enough code to reproduce your problem.
Including CREATE TABLE and INSERT statements usually helps.
State what version of SQL Server you are using and specify the content
of any error messages.
SQL Server Books Online:
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/library/ms130214(en-US,SQL.90).aspx
--|||A lot of people use multiple databases to get around the 4GB limit and as
far as I'm aware that doesn't violate the license. You're not exceeding the
limit that the license specifies, you're just scaling out by writing some
front end code.
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.
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<craigkenisston@.hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:1158866031.368894.280280@.h48g2000cwc.googlegroups.com...
> Thanks for your opinion about the terms of the software.
> Respecting how clever or not, what potential problems do you see with
> it ?
> Or what would you do with the need of storage 2TB without budget other
> than renting servers? mysql ?
> Regards,
>
> Jens wrote:
>|||Thanks for clarifying this !
Roger Wolter[MSFT] wrote:
> A lot of people use multiple databases to get around the 4GB limit and as
> far as I'm aware that doesn't violate the license. You're not exceeding t
he
> limit that the license specifies, you're just scaling out by writing some
> front end code.
>|||David:
Thanks a lot for your comment. You're right we may be are completely
wrong and the memory limitation is a big show stopper. Put 60 DB of 4Gb
each on on a 250GB Server was the idea.
Now, I have to admit that I don't understans and never understood the
SQL Server license. The workgroup edition or the server + CALs licenses
are unexpensive.
But all this data is to power a website. As far as I remember, I need
to get another kind of license, the expensive one, right ?
Regards,

> Apparently you don't have a budget for software, perhaps because your
> budget holder is naive enough to think that "free" software must cost
> less than software you have to pay for. Maybe you are about to prove
> how wrong he is. Surely the cost of creating and supporting 500+
> databases (2TB/4GB) and multiple servers will far exceed the cost of a
> server licence (Workgroup Edition starts at around $700). I suspect the
> 1GB memory constraint of Express Edition might also become a problem
> for you.|||On 21 Sep 2006 12:13:51 -0700, craigkenisston@.hotmail.com wrote:

>Thanks for your opinion about the terms of the software.
Hi craigkenisston,
<IANAL> I agree with Jens' assessment. However, if you really want to be
sure, check with a MS representative. </IANAL>
I once saw a description on Internet that detailed how to use a hex
editor to change some bytes in an MSDE executable to overcome the 5
concurrent workload limit - now THAT would be a violation of the scope
of license!!

>Respecting how clever or not, what potential problems do you see with
>it ?
* Slowness because data has to travel across the network from server to
server.
* More slowness because it's hard for the SQL optimizer to decide which
server is best equipped to execute a distributed query.
* Very complicated backup and recovery scenario's. It's impossible to
backup all databases and all servers on the exact same moment, so if you
ever need to restore, your databases and server will be out of synch and
you'll have a helll of a job restoring everything into a consistant
state.
* Extra complicated application code

>Or what would you do with the need of storage 2TB without budget other
>than renting servers? mysql ?
Even with the current pricing of hardware, I am surprised to read that
you don't have budget for a SQL Server license whereas you apparently do
have budget for "several servers", hard disks to store 2TB, backup media
to hold the same amount of data (you *DO* have a good backup strategy, I
hope - as compared to the cost of _losing_ 2TB of data, the price for a
SQL Server license is really peanuts...)
Hugo Kornelis, SQL Server MVP|||Data is redundancy in a RAID-like fashion. I can lost a server and the
system still up and running !
So
> * Slowness because data has to travel across the network from server to
> server.
Well, actually, more than going from server to server, it simply
implicates two queries, one to the allocation database and then another
to get the data from the source.

> * More slowness because it's hard for the SQL optimizer to decide which
> server is best equipped to execute a distributed query.
Sql Optimizer don't need to know where to look for data. It is not a
distribuited query, the Express edition don't have that capability ;).
I'll look for where the data is and then look for the data itself.

> * Very complicated backup and recovery scenario's.
We were not planning to tape or NAS backup. We were(are?) going to
setup full mirors of the system and it will help to serve more clients
request as well.

> * Extra complicated application code
Yes, totally agree.

> Even with the current pricing of hardware, I am surprised to read that
> you don't have budget for a SQL Server license whereas you apparently do
> have budget for "several servers",
The software is really database independent using full and pure SQL-92.
I think I can switch to mysql with a day of work. It is just that we
don't want to use mysql for "religious" reasons.
Now, what do you think?|||On 21 Sep 2006 13:43:57 -0700, craigkenisston@.hotmail.com wrote:

>But all this data is to power a website. As far as I remember, I need
>to get another kind of license, the expensive one, right ?
Hi craigkenisston,
Since a web site can have virtuallly unlimited clients accessing it,
you'll need to go for "per-processor" licensing.
Prices start at $3,899 for a single-processor license with Workgroup
Edition. (And since actual sockets are counted for the license, you can
stick a dual-core processor in the machine and have the additional power
of a second core without additional cost).
Compared to the prices of "several" computers, each with an OS license,
you'll probably save money.
Hugo Kornelis, SQL Server MVP