Could not load file or assembly 'Microsoft.SqlServer.Types

Question

I have web application which we deployed in a production . We have separate servers for WEB and Database. The DB is SQL Server 2008 and it is hosted on a completely different server and we have our IIS installed on a different server.

On my web server, we get following error. Could not load file or assembly 'Microsoft.SqlServer.Types, Version=10.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=89845dcd8080cc91' or one of its dependencies

I checked the GAC on the web server and it was missing this particular DLL. This makes sense to me since it is a web server and it is not supposed to have assemblies related to SQLServer.

Our application worked great in our dev, test and staging environment as our IIS and DB were installed on same server.

How do I get past this issue on Production? I can, by installing SQL Server 2008 on the web server. But this is does not make sense to me. It is a web server - why should I install SQL Server 2008 on that machine?

Answer 1

Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Feature Pack

Brief Description:

Download the Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Feature Pack, a collection of stand-alone install packages that provide additional value for SQL Server 2008. Specifically the CLR Data Types.

Note: Updated feature pack link Jan 2013