Today, I received a phone call from a friend who is thinking to downgrade the database hosted in SQL Server 2008 Enterprise Edition to SQL Server 2008 Standard Edition. He made me question whether this type of move is possible and is there any way for him to test the database to see if this type of move is possible, before actually attempting it.

Well, as we all know, the editions can be considered as an extension of the feature set and certain characteristics of SQL Server database engine are limited to specific editions of SQL Server. Then, according to Microsoft Books Online (BOL), the database containing these features cannot be moved to an edition of SQL Server that does not support them.

Luckily, SQL Server 2008 and later editions includes dynamic management view (sys.dm_db_persisted_sku_features) that can be used to list all the edition specific features that are enabled in the current database. Checkout my article here, in which I discussed about this useful DMV.

This article is published on SSWUG.org.