Microsoft SQL Server Compact Edition 2005

SQL Compact edition 2005 is a complement to the existing range of SQL server products.

Although SQL Server compact edition is aimed squarely at the mobile market it could offer value in the following scenarios:

• Scenarios where the deployment of SQL express edition is too cumbersome.
• A small portable database is required that does not justify the need for SQL server express edition.

I have encountered the following problems when using SQL compact edition:

• Although the install can be executed silently an install is required to register SQL Server as a data provider.
• Although the database supports multi threading the provider only allows connections from a single process at any one time.
• Although SQL Server management studio 2005 supports mobile edition, you have write queries to view the data in tables .
• When connected via management studio the database is locked for read access (Single process restriction).
• The database engine does not support stored procedures.

In my next article we will look at how we can overcome some of these problems.