What is the difference between SQL Server 2000 standard and enterprise editions?

Question

Does SQL Server 2000 Enterprise Edition offer any performance advantages over the SQL Server 2000 Standard Edition?

Answer

There are several areas where SQL Server 2000 Enterprise Edition has a performance advantage of SQL Server 2000 Standard Edition. SQL Server 2000 Enterprise Edition offers these performance-related features not available in other editions of SQL Server:

• Ability to support more CPUs (up to 32 instead of only 4).
  

• Ability to support more RAM (up to 64GB instead of only 2GB).
  

• Ability to fully support indexed views.
  

• Distributed partitioned views.
  

• Advanced OLAP analysis features.
  

• DBCC CHECK commands can run in parallel across multiple CPUs.
  

• Index creation can automatically make use of all available CPUs. Assuming your server has multiple CPUs, SQL Server 2000 uses near-linear scaling to boost index creation speed.

• Multiple, non-ordered scans of a table or index can take advantage of other currently ongoing scans of that same table or index, reducing disk I/O.

The question you may be asking yourself is should I spend the extra bucks and purchase the Enterprise Edition over the Standard Edition? One way to look at this question is to ask yourself if you have to have any of the above features in order to accomplish your objectives. If you answer yes, then you need to purchase Enterprise Edition. But if you don't have to have the above features, then the Standard Edition will suffice. Of course, if you want the ultimate in performance, and your budget is not a problem, then the Enterprise Edition is the way to go.

The Enterprise Edition also has several other features that the Standard Edition does not support, including built-in log-shipping and clustering. Of course, these are not performance-related, but they may play an important part of your decision.