Why use SQL Server Express

Microsoft has a long history in databases, producing one of the most popular database systems on the planet, Microsoft's SQL Server. Over the years, Microsoft has improved SQL Server, and they have always provided a development or personal version for programmers to use. This means programmers don't need to pay outrageous licensing fees to simply develop against SQL Server, and then pay those fees again when the application is deployed. In Microsoft's latest implementations of SQL Server, this development version is called SQL Server Express. Both Microsoft SQL Server 2005 (which we will use) and its recently released SQL Server 2008 come in Express versions.

Licensing for these versions is also very advantageous to our project, as the use of the Express version is free. That's right, a fully functional Relational Database Management System (RDBMS) that can be used for no charge. There are limitations such as the size of the database and the lack of management tools built into the database package, but they are not an issue in our case. Our database will never grow too large while we create this project, and Microsoft has a free management tool for SQL Server 2005 Express, which will meet our needs.

There are two other advantages to Microsoft SQL Sever Express versions. The first is that they easily transfer to a full version of the software. The database files in both the full versions and the Express versions are the same. This means that if we ever did run out of space on the Express version, we could super size the database by migrating to the full SQL Server version.

The second advantage is that Visual Web Developer, which we are using for development, already has an understanding of Microsoft SQL Server, including the Express version. This means we can use the tools in Visual Web Developer to create our database and connections, and the connections will just work. As with everything created in a development environment such as Visual Web Developer, there are ways we can improve the default functions. However, when just starting out, it is critical to have a development environment that understands what you're doing.