Every release lately, Microsoft has been turning the screws on Standard Edition users. We get less CPU power, less memory, and few (if any) new features.

According to Microsoft, if you want to use more than $500 worth of memory in your server, you have to step up to Enterprise Edition. Seriously? Standard Edition licensing costs about $2,000 per CPU core, but it can only access 64GB of memory? That’s ridiculous. UPDATE: Thanks to complaints like this, Microsoft has raised the Standard Edition limit to 128GB!

SQL Server 2014 New Features that Aren’t In Standard Edition

Take just a quick glance at the SQL Server 2014 edition feature grid and you might be shocked at what Standard Edition doesn’t allow:

Database snapshots (a huge lifesaver when doing deployments)

Online reindexing, parallel index operations (wouldn’t you like to use more than one core?)

Transparent database encryption (because only enterprises store personally identifiable data or sell stuff online, right?)

Auditing (guess only enterprises need compliance)

Tons of BI features (because hey, your small business doesn’t have intelligence)

Any non-deprecated high availability feature (no AlwaysOn Availability Groups – you get database mirroring, but that’s marked for death)

Will We Get New Pricing and Licensing by the Release Date?

Every now and then, I hear managers and DBAs react with shock about how limited Standard is, and how much Enterprise Edition costs – $7,000 per CPU core.

Sometimes they even say, “That’s ludicrous! If I was Microsoft, there’s no way I would do it that way. And we’ve got really savvy developers – I bet we could even write a database engine that could do most of what we need.”

Okay, big shot. Time to put your money where your mouth is.

The world is full of open source databases that are really good. You’re not the only ones frustrated with what Microsoft’s done to SQL Server licensing, and there’s vibrant developer communities hard at work building and improving database servers.

What’s that, you say? You’re too busy? You’d rather keep paying support on your current SQL Server, and keep working on incremental performance improvements to your code and indexes?

Yep, that’s what I thought.

Microsoft won’t change its tack on SQL Server licensing until you start leaving. Therefore, I need you to stop using SQL Server so they’ll start making it better. You know, for me.

Download the SQL Server 2014 Trial for Free

If you’d like to play with Hekaton, clustered column store indexes, or the other new features in 2014, now’s your chance. You can download the trial edition for free, but just keep in mind that we have absolutely no idea what features will be included in each edition when the release date comes.

If You’re Stuck on Standard Edition, There’s Hope

You can save a ton of money on Standard Edition, but you’re going to have to be smarter about how you use it. You can’t just throw it into production and hope it performs.

Learn how to be a performance-tuning DBA – our free 6-month DBA Training Plan email course teaches you from backups all the way up to future-proofing your SQL Server apps for the newest 2014 features. Subscribe now.

Get trained on SQL Server performance – our training classes and videos teach you real-world tips and tricks to make your server fly.

Our SQL Critical Care® can ease performance pains even faster. In just 3-4 days, we work with you as a team, walking through your server together, showing you the coolest scripts and tools to rapidly diagnose the root cause of slow queries. Learn more about how we can help with Standard Edition pains.