SQL Server Express 2008 R2 for Production use on Amazon EC2 Micro Instance

Question

Thank you for taking the time to read my question. A little background before I get to the real question. We are building an application and we do not know how much volume we are going to get the first day we launch our project or even few months after we launch.

We are using SQL Server Express 2008 R2 for development purpose and would optimally use SQL Server 08 Standard on Amazon EC2 for production. However, as you know Amazon EC2 with SQL Server 08 Standard is expensive, at lest for us.

I'm having hard time trying to decide should I pick SQL Server Express 08 for my production use and later grow if there is need or do I start right away with Sql Server 2008 Standard?

I've scoured the internet to read some of the experiences from people who have used SQL Server 2008 Express for production and I've found few discussions about it which were helpful.

SQL Server 2008 express performance in production environment?

SQL Express for production?

https://serverfault.com/questions/60670/sql-server-express-for-production-databases

From my research, I know Sql server express can handle 1 GB of Ram, 1 CPU (can have multiple core) and 10 GB limit per database. I also read the post where someone mentioned the lack of SQL server agent and profiling etc and you can use Developer edition and remotely login to gauge performance etc.

I'm planning to run Sql Server Express 08 on Amazon Micro Instance (this instance would be for database only).

"Micro Instance 613 MB of memory, up to 2 ECUs (for short periodic bursts), EBS storage only, 32-bit or 64-bit platform"

So I'm not sure how much memory will be available for Express as I believe much will be taken by OS.

My real question is, has someone used SQL server express 08 for production use with the above setup or similar? How many concurrent connection was Express able to handle? What challenges did you come across in regards to administering express for production?

If you can toss out numbers like "500 users were using your app and in every page of your app would call multiple SP and express was able to handle it" etc would be very helpful.

The reason I want to use Express is save some money up front and scale at a later time.

Another option is I can get into Microsoft Bizspark and get Standard version license and install in my EC2 instance to reduce my upfront cost, if I have to go with Standard Version. I want to save a bit but at the same time I don't want my app users to suffer due to lack of resources.

I greatly appreciate you reading my post and I look forward to hearing your experience or suggestion.

Regards, BRBH

Answer 1

SQL Server Express has the same concurrent connection quantity =32767. You can see object specification here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms143432.aspx . Answer on your second question - a lot of people use Express for production. You can choose between Express and standard depending from your project size.

It is possible to handle 500 users at the same time on Express. But what they will do? If they will search a fragment in a text, performance will be very slow. But if it should be simple CRUD statements so no problems should be there.

And one important thing - starting from Express, you always can upgrade to Standard or Enterprise version.