SQL Server Question

Megadeth4168

This might be better suited for Off Topic. If so then please feel free to move it.

I'm not very strong with SQL server, so forgive me.

I have a server running SQL Server 7.0, I would like to also install SQL Server 2005 express edition on the same server. What kind of problems can I expect from this?

BeaverC32

Not sure about SQL Server 7.0, but I know you can do side-by-side installs with SQL Server 2000 + 2005. Only thing you need to watch out for is if the older instance is running as the default instance, you will need to make SQL Server 2005 a named instance.

Again, I'm not sure if this can be done with a version older than SQL Server 2000.

Edit: Check this out: http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/sql/2005/sqlupgrd.mspx

The database engine upgrade is the easiest upgrade and will result in immediate return on investment in the areas of management, performance, and high availability. Again, the two main options for the database engine upgrade are side-by-side migration (in which you install the SQL Server 2005 engine as a secondary instance on the same server as your SQL Server 2000 or 7.0 server or on a completely separate server) and an in-place upgrade (in which you upgrade an instance of SQL Server 2000 or 7.0 through the install process and databases and other objects are upgraded “in place”).

With a side-by-side migration, the most common upgrade path is a simple database detach and re-attach on the SQL Server 2005 instance or a database backup and restore from the older version to the new version. If you keep an up-to-date version of your metadata scripts, you can also create the objects on the SQL Server 2005 server and use BCP to export and import your data. The other option is an in-place upgrade, in which you upgrade and adapt the databases, settings, and extended features to the SQL Server 2005 engine during the install process. When you run the setup process on a server that has a SQL Server 2000 or 7.0 instance, you’ll see an option to upgrade the selected instance to SQL Server 2005.

Note that for the database engine upgrade, all your existing Microsoft Data Access Components (MDAC) and ADO.NET applications will continue to function as when they were running against SQL Server 2000 or 7.0. In fact, SQL Server 2005 doesn't come with a newer release of MDAC. But new to the platform is the SQL Native Client, combining an updated SQL ODBC driver and SQL OLEDB provider with network libraries in a single DLL. The SQL Native Client lets you leverage SQL Server 2005's new client-access features, such as Multiple Active Result Sets (MARS), the XML data type, and user-defined types (UDTs). SQL Server comes with tight integration with the .NET Framework 2.0, which includes the latest ADO.NET version.

The in-place server upgrade will be the easiest. Although this approach requires a more thorough fallback plan and testing, you reap the rewards through seamless connectivity. By performing an in-place upgrade, logins and users remain in-sync, database connections remain the same for applications, and SQL Agent jobs and other functionality is concurrently upgraded during the installation. Note that several features, such as log shipping, replication, and cluster environments, have special upgrade considerations.

Megadeth4168

Cool, thanks! I made a backup of the SQl server 7 databases, just in case...