Let’s face it SQL Server licensing is expensive and companies will jump at any opportunity to reduce costs where they can.
SQL Server licenses are actually bundled with some products!
What you say.
Yes true, for example, System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM) comes with a free SQL Server Standard Edition license. The catch is that if a database for any additional Microsoft or third-party product shares the SQL Server, you must have a separate license for that SQL Server instance.
Wow, so why would you ever host your SCCM databases on a shared instance. It just doesn’t make sense, unless you really need some enterprise features like Transparent Data Encryption (TDE) or you have a super complex environment.
Developer Edition became free with SQL Server 2014, so it’s a no brainier to use that for non-Production environments. Even pre-SQL Server 2014 you could have looked to use the much cheaper Developer Edition to help reduce costs.
So I’ll start a list and as it grows so can your potential cost savings:
- System Center Configuration Manager ref: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sccm/core/understand/product-and-licensing-faq