MS Licensing just baffles me. If I upgrade from SQL Server Express to SQL Server Standard 2016 or 2017, what User or Device CAL's do I need to purchase? I'm not expecting a legal commitment here of what appears to be a black art, just what others here understand and use in general practice.

I have SQL running on a Windows 2012 Standard server (64 bit) that's acting as a WebConnect web server using SQL for logs, and I also have about a half dozen scheduled applications running in the background which also use SQL (mostly for activity logs but beginning to use it for larger app tables). I currently only have two SQL accounts defined for all these apps.

I chatted with a 'licensing expert' at one of the resellers and it seemed like they are selling cars... 'You need one device CAL for the server and a user CAL for each application'. That seems just... dumb.

I'd also like to know the impact of possible future use for workstations. I'm assuming I would need a user CAL for each...

(almost painful enough to switch to MySQL)

If this is for Web applications there's special licensing for Web servers that's not based on single user CALs.

If you want to switch I think the thing to switch to is PostGres - MySql comes with own set of licensing hell now that it's owned by Oracle.

+++ Rick ---

For websites, yes, but ALSO for other programs.

PostGres is what I used before because of its early support for stored procedures (which is now supported by MySql).

Any program or class mods required for WebConnect to use PostGres for its logs - or just the driver info in the SQL string?

I'm not sure - haven't tried it but basically yes: Just change the connection string and the rest should just work.

The stock SQL from the various components WWWC uses is very basic ANSI SQL so it should work for most things. The business object will need something to replace the stored procedure logic for generating new ids (if you want to do that) but otherwise all the rest of the SQL is super simple.

+++ Rick ---