How to distribute SQL Server Express with my software - sql-server

I've developed a software that uses SQL Server Express.
From the legal point of view, I would like to be confirmed that what I have developed is legal, as the user can click on a SQL Server Express button within my software, a click that starts the installation process.
I really would like an official yes/no answer if possible from Microsoft.
Thank you in advance,
Bracha Goldstein

I think you would be wise to contact Microsoft directly, especially when it comes to a legal/licensing point of view. Proof from the vendor is crucial.
Call them, ask for a licensing expert and explain your situation.
Your local contact details can be found at https://www.microsoft.com/

Related

SSMS(SQL Server Management Studio) for professionals

This is a very elementary doubt as I am trying to build some fundamental knowledge.
I downloaded SSMS in my local machine (laptop). I agree that we can save data/entries in my local machine, but then suppose if I make a web app where users can upload videos/image files, then certainly I cannot or don't want to use my local machine to save their files.
My doubt is, SSMS , i.e., the management studio software which is installed in my local machine , is it possible to use it for online data handling of other users around the world?
Surely, the software must not be only for newbies learning to get a hang of database stuffs in an offline mode, but it must be also used by professionals handling real world data? Do professionals really use the software for their projects?
To a degree, the answer is in the name, SQL Server "MANAGEMENT" Studio. SSMS is a tool for managing SQL Server instances. Whether those are running locally on the machine that has SSMS installed, remotely on some server within your environment, or up on the cloud hosted in Azure, AWS or Google. You can connect to any Microsoft SQL Server instance through SSMS and then you can manipulate the server and the databases within the server. It is a sophisticated tool with a great deal of depth.
It is absolutely not intended to be a front-end for individual users to manipulate the data within a database. Does it have this capacity? Yes, in an extremely limited fashion. It's a very secondary aspect of the tool and not it's primary purpose. See above.
For the kind of data manipulation you're describing, the standard response is to A) Purchase a software designed to manage the data you want, B) Build a tool that does what you need. It's really that simple. For example, you talk about want to manage videos. For option A, you could look to a service such as Vimeo to handle your videos. Or, if what you want is unique, you're going to have to build a new piece of software, option B.
Regardless, SSMS is not the end-user solution. It's absolutely meant as a development and management tool. That's why it's called Management Studio.

What database program can be used for this?

I'm in a database class. We're learning about joins, unions, and projections.
Is there a program that would be helpful in getting practice? Like I an expression and it selects the appropriate fields in a table.
Please don't bother downloading and trying to install a server DBMS (plus one or more clients) for this simple task. If you're taking a course in being a database administrator you might want to spend hours learning these technologies (and, if you go on to work with these products seriously you will, eventually, need to master some of them), but if you just want to practice SQL queries, there are sites that let you do just this.
You can find some nice on-line exercises here: http://sqlzoo.net/.
MySql is easy to use and free so that would be my choice. The community server is the one you want to download.
http://www.mysql.com/
I would recommend getting the Workbench tool as well to make this easier to create tables and mess around with them.
Download and install Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 Express, with Management Tools. Has everything you need to get started and it's 100% free.
You can get it here: http://www.microsoft.com/sqlserver/en/us/editions/express.aspx
Or if you are willing to part with $50, you can buy SQL Server 2008 R2 Developer Edition (full enterprise/data center edition, just with licensing restricting only to development, testing, and demoing) to do some really cool stuff.

Business Data Catalog does not appear in SSP admin

I'm trying to connect to a database (SQL Server 2005) in MOSS 2007 using BDC. I've created the aplication definition xml and I need to import it in Sharepoint shared services provider in order to use it.
The problem is I cannot find the Business Data Catalog (where "Import application definition" is) section in SSP admin. Here is a screenshot with what appears in my shared services admin:
http://imageshack.us/f/17/screenbf.png/
Can someone please help me with this? Why can't I see that BDC section? If you need more details, ask :) Thank you.
LATER EDIT: I've searched a little more and it seems that BDC is a MOSS enterprise only feature. Can someone please confirm this?
Your link does not provide the image path. Are you trying to set BDC as datasource for User Profiles. If you have confusion and want to learn about BDC then Follow this article
and others similar to it provided there.
I have confirmed this. The problem was that BDC is a MOSS enterprise only feature (ugh). So I installed an enterprise license (all the software is installed in sharepoint, only that certain features are hidden depending on your license... yuck, I hate this).

Sql Server 2008 Reporting Services email on the fly solution

To all,
I have noticed that other reporting tools allow you the option, at the time of running a report from the web interface, to either have it rendered to the browser or allow you to enter an email address have have the report sent to that address. This would be helpful for long running reports or reports that are fairly large.
My question is whether this can be done with the existing sql server 2008 report server toolset or if there are third part solutions available?
Thanks.
--sean
I don't think that what you are wanting to do is possible out of the box.
This may seem like overkill for your situation, however, I have worked for a client who wanted some custom features like this. Given that Report Manager is so inflexible out of the box, we wrote a new front end leveraging the Reporting Services Service. We could then write our own extended capabilities right into the new viewer.
This link describes it a bit more.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms159218.aspx
You can setup a subscription on a report which will email it too you once or at regular intervals.
This Link give you more info. Be aware that if you want data driven subscriptions you need enterprise sql server.

SQL Server Management Studio as Application Platform

Could the SQL Server IDE ever become an application development platform for enterprise applications? In a similar way to the old xBase applications, but, you know, better?
The main reason is that the Management Studio is one of the best “data centric” application I’ve ever used. It has most of the main ingredients for the proposed solutions:
powerful data manipulation language (SQL :o) )
good security
distributed architecture
The main features that it lacks:
a GUI toolkit: something simple and standard, enterprise applications usually don’t require fancy UIs
some form of automation (.Net, COM, I really don’t care as long as it works)
MS Office integration (especially Excel)
So…?
UPDATE:
The question above is a request for feedback on an idea. I'm not planning to use SSMS to build an interactive application in the near future. I would really like to hear what do you think about it and what other suggestions you might have (maybe there is already a product which does exactly that).
A shorter text for the question would be "If SSMS and MS Access could marry, how would their child look like?"
2nd UPDATE:
"Microsoft announces its new product codename 'Frankenstein'. The new product tries to combine the ease of development of database applications from the old Fox Pro and Access times, with the brand new SQL Server 2012 suite. As 'Frankenstein's Product Manager, Jim Bob, stated "[Frankenstein] will enable the developers to shut the f*#k up, and just build that thing already. Not spend their (highly remunerated) time arguing what's the best ORM, or AJAX toolkit, or should they use SOA etc... (btw, since 2009, SOA is dead)"
Well it depends on what way you look at it.
You can extend and build plugins for management studio but you can also use the visual studio shell as the base for new applications (altho I don't think this is what you want?)
However re-reading your question it looks like you actually want to build applications for SQL server. In that case you might want to check out Visual Studio Team Systems Database Edition
There's two risks involved with building applications on top of SQL Server Management Studio.
First, SQL Server Management Studio has been fairly consistent from 2005 to 2008, but that's only three years of release time. SQL Server 2000's tools were dramatically different, and there's no reason to expect SQL Server management tools to always remain the same.
For example, at the Professional Association for SQL Server (PASS) Summit in Seattle in 2008, Microsoft demoed a new management framework for SQL Server. The databases will be packaged and managed in a way quite different from what we're used to in SSMS. Project Kilimanjaro (think of it as SQL 2008 R2) will be the "down payment" on that management, with the rest of the tools coming in later versions. SSMS will look, feel and work differently in order to accomodate this new way of building database-driven applications.
Second, Microsoft's architecture for SSMS is not pluggable, and they haven't encouraged any third party development inside SSMS that I'm aware of. You can build some level of interactivity by using RDLC reports - standalone SQL Server Reporting Services applications that run inside SSMS - but for the most part, you're not encouraged to build atop SSMS because they do want the right to change it when they need to improve it.
I've got good news, though - you mentioned that you'd want some kind of Office tie-in. Keep your eye out for Project Gemini announcements. Donald Farmer did demos of it at PASS, and there's probably some video circulating around. It uses Excel as a front end for BI analytics, and they used million-row-spreadsheets that were storing data back in SQL. There's not much out out yet for the public, but keep your eyes peeled.
To answer the shorter question - Have you seen the various Frankenstein films?
The longer question - why would you want it to, you already have Visual Studio? SSMS is an excellent environment for developing stored procedures, queries, views and the like, lets leave it that way. And anyhow, the only good XBase environment was FoxPro and look where that ended up.

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