SQL server express limitations, am I in trouble now?

[Peejay62]

Going through the new V7 userguide I noticed in the planning and preparation topic the following @page 130(earlier userguides didn't mention this):

For the Backup Server:
Important!
Due to its limitations, Microsoft SQL Server Express Edition should only be used for evaluation purposes or in case of a small-scale production environment. For environments with a lot of VMs, it is necessary to install a fully functional commercial version of Microsoft SQL Server.

So, I am wondering, what are a lot of VMs, do we talk hunderds or thousands of them? I am trying to figure out if this is of any impact for us. Guess that using a commercial product of sql server will require licenses to be acquired, and obviously will cost money.

[Gostev]

Up to a thousand.

[dellock6]

Hi, as an example, in our environment we started having problems with SQL Express when we first passed around 500 VMs, and the problem was about CPU, being the Veeam Server a VM too. SQL Express is limited to only 1 CPU and anytime we run something heavy on Veeam we were seing the sql service hitting only a vCPU for long period of time. This was in particular really noticable during Veeam service startup.
Obviously , the swap to SQL Standard solved all these problem.

Luca.

[veremin]

For other SQL express limitations kindly refer to this article. Thanks.

[Peejay62]

Ok thanks for the replies. This is something that I have to keep in mind. We've just started rolling out Veeam B&R and passed the thousand vm's quite a while ago..
@Luca: that was processing/ backing up 500 VM's? I mean having jobs defined for them and everything else that comes with it.
making use of a distributed setup with more backupservers seems like a fair option for me to avoid acquiring a seperate sql version.

[tdewin]

Also if you are planning on using the Veeam Explorer for sharepoint, you should consider the fact that it needs a local staging server

As the staging system, you can use the Microsoft SQL Server Express 2008 R2 SP1 that is shipped with the Veeam Backup & Replication setup. However, consider that content databases that exceed 10 GB cannot be attached to this SQL Server.

http://helpcenter.veeam.com/backup/70/v ... erver.html

[zoltank]

What is the process for upgrading a vCenter SQL Express installation to SQL Standard.

[Vitaliy S.]

Here you go the instructions to follow > http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/micros ... Id=1028601

[ethompson]

Can it be assumed that the "up to a thousand" is still the limitation and a deciding factor to use SQL Express vs SQL if using version B&R v8 or v9?

Stated another way, can B&R v8 or V9 with SQL Express be used in an environment with less than 1000 VMs?

[Vitaliy S.]

Yes, you can use SQL Server Express edition with VBR v8/v9 when protecting 1000 VMs.

[Gostev]

Our official recommendation these days is up to 500 VMs... this thread above is 2 years old, and our product has much evolved since then, so we do much more with the configuration database than we used to, which loads it more than it used to.

If you need to go above 500 VMs on Express, then make sure you are using SQL Express 2014. Thing is, SQL Server 2014 has some significant improvements under the hood which really helps to reduce load on the database server... this was arguably the most important release in the history of SQL Server

Also, be sure to install v8 Update 3, as we've done a lot of work there to reduce load on SQL database.