Microsoft SQL Server and Line-of-Business Applications

If you have licensed a copy of SBS 2003 R2 Premium Edition but your vendor has not certified a line-of-business application for use with Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Workgroup Edition (the version of Microsoft SQL Server that ships with SBS 2003 R2 Premium Edition), you may be entitled to exercise an “one-time” downgrade of your SBS 2003 R2 Premium Technologies CD to SBS 2003 SP1 Premium Technologies CD, which includes Microsoft SQL Server 2000 Standard Edition. After exercising this Premium technologies downgrade right, you may run the version of your line-of-business application which is compatible with SQL Server 2000 Standard Edition. For details, visit the downgrade rights page. This offer is valid through April 30, 2008.

No. It is possible to install those products, but this configuration is not supported by Microsoft. A better configuration would be to add another member server running Windows Server 2003 Standard Edition and then install the version of SQL Server on the member server.

SBS 2003 R2 Premium Edition includes SQL Server 2005 Workgroup Edition technology. This means you will have access to Management Studio (a subset of Visual Studio), Report Services and Report Builder that will help you build custom SQL Server applications and reports. You can then make this information available on the SharePoint intranet Web site, build new Web pages or Web parts using FrontPage 2003 – also included with Premium Edition – or simply publish reports on the site for use with Microsoft Office products such as Excel. With these tools working together with SharePoint, you can quickly generate information views (such as daily individual sales reports) that help you run your business better and faster.

No. As long as the Internet users do not authenticate on the SBS 2003 R2 network, you do not need an SBS 2003 R2 CAL for those users. You also do not need to purchase any SQL Server CALs for un-authenticated users. But if they authenticate on the network, such as logging in to check on order status in a line-of-business application, you will need an SBS 2003 R2 Premium Edition CAL.

Yes, it’s designed to be. However there is a known issue involving the Dynamics SQL Server Reporting Service (SRS) module and SQL Server 2005 Workgroup Edition that prevents reports from working properly. Two workarounds are needed: first, during the Dynamics CRM setup, customers must select the Custom Install option to point to the existing installation of SRS 2005. Second, customers must contact Dynamics CRM Support free of charge to receive a hotfix that allows reports to work correctly. The workarounds will be documented in a white paper in the mid-September 2006 timeframe, and the problems are scheduled to be fixed in January 2007. For more on the installation issue, see KnowledgeBase article 921189; for more on the SRS 2005 issue, see KnowledgeBase article 923387.