Should we upgrade to SQL Server 2005 or 2008?

Question

Our company is considering upgrading our SQL server.

At this point, would it be better to upgrade to 2005 or 2008?

Here are some of my considerations:

• Features
• Licensing costs
• Learning curve

Bear in mind our staff has already been using SQL server 2000 for many years.

Answer 1

If you're porting your SQL Server 2000 codebase to SQL Server 2005 or 2008 the effort to go to 2008 is not going to be significantly greater. While 2008 has some features over 2005 the difference is not so great as the jump from 2000 to 2005. I would suggest going straight to SQL Server 2008 with the following major pros and cons to the decision:

Pros of going to 2008

• You get another 3 years of lifespan for your systems essentially for free. SQL Server 2008 will be in support for longer than SQL Server 2005. This gives you a longer stretch before you will have to mover over to the new version. IMO this is probably the strongest argument for going straight to SQL Server 2008.

• You get some features such as geospatial indexing that are not available in SQL Server 2005. While your SQL Server 2000 applications will not use these features initially, you get more options in future without having to do another platform shift. For your porting exercise this doesn't matter but you buy yourself a little flexibility nearly for free.

Pros of going to SQL Server 2005

• It's less 'bleeding edge' than SQL Server 2008 so the implementation path will probably be slightly easier.

• Recruiting people skilled with SQL Server 2005 will be easier than getting experienced SQL Server 2008 people. However, presumably you will mainly be re-training your existing staff so this is not likely to be a major issue.

YMMV on some of these points, so you may wish to do some more detailed investigation about the potential issues and see if there are any real benefits or obstacles that are specific to your circumstances.