April 4, 2011 at 3:36 pm
Is it possible to 'downgrade' SQL 2008 R2 from standard edition to Developer edition?
I'm working on developing a long-term SQL Server infrastructure for my company. We're evaluating using the Enterprise edition, but my bet at this point is that we'll go with Standard at least short-term. If, at some point in the future we decide to go to Enterprise, we'd want to (A) upgrade our production Standard installs to Enterprise, and (B) change our non-production installs to Developer to reduce licensing costs. (I'd be OK with the production environments having slightly less capabilities, since Developer is now equivalent to Data Center)
From what I've seen (http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms143393.aspx), it doesn't look like what I'd like to do is possible. Hoping someone knows otherwise. I'd like to avoid having to install SQL Server from scratch if we changed editions. Thanks....
Brian Kukowski
April 4, 2011 at 10:19 pm
Brian Kukowski (4/4/2011)
If, at some point in the future we decide to go to Enterprise, we'd want to (A) upgrade our production Standard installs to Enterprise, and (B) change our non-production installs to Developer to reduce licensing costs.
From what I have seen Microsoft doesn't support that.
I would advise you to be careful about your use of the Developer edition, my understanding from talking to Microsoft is that nobody without a Developer edition license can access the server, or look at the reports created from it if it contains real/production data. i.e. you can't use it for QA/UA with real data if users accessing it, or the results from it, don't have developer licenses.
I would love to be wrong, as it would save us a bunch of money, but that is what Microsoft told me.
April 5, 2011 at 2:29 am
Yep. Piece of cake to do this. UMG has some good caution about the licensing differences and to be careful not to violate the agreement for using the Developer edition.
But on the technical side, I just did this about a week ago, if I can only remember exactly what I did. I remember just rerunning the installer (setup) from the Developer edition media and point it at your existing instance. Somewhere after specifying the existing instance, it'll ask you if you want to 'upgrade'. Upon choosing yes (including all related services like SSRS), it prompts for the key. I slapped in my dev edition key and it completed the upgrade. Checking my version showed the dev edition.
One of my employees needed to install R2 to do some development work but my only dev edition/MSDN license was on my own system, so I had him install the standard edition 6 month trial. Course, this was, um, 6 months ago. In the mean time, I bought another dev edition license (Amazon.com!) but didn't get around to reinstalling until the tools smacked him down one day last week.
Anyway, most of my trepidation was not wanting to point the installer at my instance, hoping for an earlier non-hosing option which would tell me if this path would even work in the first place. Once I ran through it as a last-ditch "I'm going to uninstall/reinstall next anyway" effort, I found that the installer handled it properly.
Jim
Jim Murphy
http://www.sqlwatchmen.com
@SQLMurph
May 1, 2012 at 1:11 pm
Solution proposed by previous post (Jim Murphy) doesn't work. Just tried it to downgrade SQL 2008 Enterprise to Developer.
Current system:
Microsoft SQL Server 2008 (SP3) - 10.0.5500.0 (X64) Sep 21 2011 22:45:45 Copyright (c) 1988-2008 Microsoft Corporation Enterprise Edition (64-bit) on Windows NT 6.1 <X64> (Build 7600: ) (VM)
10.0.5500.0,SP3,Enterprise Edition (64-bit)
It may work with additional steps, but it doesn't as mentioned in the post.
Mark
July 10, 2012 at 7:55 am
Jim posted about standard to Developer, I expect Enterprise to Developer is another kettle of fish
July 10, 2012 at 8:09 am
I can tell you from experience that there is no downgrade path. Even though DEV has all of the features of Enterprise, it is considered a downgrade and does not work.
Jared
CE - Microsoft
July 10, 2012 at 8:20 am
I recently had to downgrade a server from Enterprise to Developer as we wanted to ensure the proper licensing compliance on a dev box.
What I did was:
1.) Clone the server using VMWare (all our dev servers are virtual, only production servers are physical).
2.) Rename the existing server "servername_old".
3.) Detach all the databases on the clone.
4.) Uninstall SQL Enterprise on the clone.
5.) Reboot.
6.) Install SQL Developer on the clone (we also had the "old" VM to use as a reference.)
7.) Attach all the databases.
8.) Script out the creation of the logins from the "old" VM.
So, in less than 2.5 hours (which included the time it took to create the clone) we solved a similar issue with a dev server.
July 10, 2012 at 8:23 am
Also, it should be noted that Standard to Developer is no downgrade.
In terms of features, Developer is identical to Enterprise.
July 10, 2012 at 8:26 am
tim.cloud (7/10/2012)
Also, it should be noted that Standard to Developer is no downgrade.In terms of features, Developer is identical to Enterprise.
Maybe so in terms of features. However, it is considered a downgrade. I have called and spoken to MS people in this. Features do not determine an upgrade or downgrade. Ultimately, the company does.
Jared
CE - Microsoft
July 10, 2012 at 8:34 am
I have successfully downgraded about 20 servers in our environment. I am working on doing the same to the clustered ones too.
I tested cluster downgrade on a test cluster and it worked.
We had SQL Server 2008 Enterprise everywhere and had to downgrade in lower environments to SQL Server 2008 Developer.
The basics are this. Install Developer edition and look at the registry in Setup dir. Take those keys and copy them to Ent. server. You have to restart SQL Service for it to "know" it's now Developer edition.
July 10, 2012 at 8:41 am
mark.dba (7/10/2012)
I have successfully downgraded about 20 servers in our environment. I am working on doing the same to the clustered ones too.I tested cluster downgrade on a test cluster and it worked.
We had SQL Server 2008 Enterprise everywhere and had to downgrade in lower environments to SQL Server 2008 Developer.
The basics are this. Install Developer edition and look at the registry in Setup dir. Take those keys and copy them to Ent. server. You have to restart SQL Service for it to "know" it's now Developer edition.
Interesting... So in the cas of Enterprise to Dev, it is as simple as changing the keys? Basically "fooling" it into thinking the original install was Dev. Now, do you know of a way for this to work on Standard? Maybe, upgrade Standard to Enterprise and then switch the keys to the Dev? Hmm...
Jared
CE - Microsoft
July 10, 2012 at 8:52 am
It's multiple keys you have to change under Setup registry folder.
I messed with these keys : ProductCode, Checksum, ProductID, DigitalProductID, EditionType, Edition, SQLGroup, AGTGroup.
I just kept changing them one by one what made sense and kept running:
SELECT SERVERPROPERTY('IsClustered') as [1_MeansClustered]
, SERVERPROPERTY('ComputerNamePhysicalNetBIOS') as ActiveNode
, SERVERPROPERTY ('edition') as ProdType
, SERVERPROPERTY ('productlevel') as ProdLevel
, SERVERPROPERTY('productversion') as ProdVersion
, @@version as [version]
until it started reporting correctly.
Oh, and installed SP3 on top of that. It was RTM or SP1 prior to my messing with it.
Now, I did this because these environments aren't critical. I wouldn't sleep well if this was done on PROD.
Hope this helps.
July 10, 2012 at 9:33 am
Questions about Dev edition licensing:
1) Are licences assigned to the server or a particular person/developer? If we have a team doing DEV/QA work, can they all access it on one $50 license?
2) Due to HIPPA regulations, we're not supposed to have actual customer data on nonProduction systems. When I create new nonProduction DBs, I run scripts which either delete customer data, or scramble it (randomly reassign names, alter all addresses, SSNs, phone numbers etc.) We use the later when we want to test using a DB the same size as production. Once the data is altered so that it can no longer be used for production, are we free to use it in the Dev edition?
3) Can the Dev edition be used for end-user training as long as no actual production data is in it, or is end-user training considered a production use?
July 10, 2012 at 9:37 am
dan-572483 (7/10/2012)
Questions about Dev edition licensing:1) Are licences assigned to the server or a particular person/developer? If we have a team doing DEV/QA work, can they all access it on one $50 license?
2) Due to HIPPA regulations, we're not supposed to have actual customer data on nonProduction systems. When I create new nonProduction DBs, I run scripts which either delete customer data, or scramble it (randomly reassign names, alter all addresses, SSNs, phone numbers etc.) We use the later when we want to test using a DB the same size as production. Once the data is altered so that it can no longer be used for production, are we free to use it in the Dev edition?
3) Can the Dev edition be used for end-user training as long as no actual production data is in it, or is end-user training considered a production use?
All good questions for a MS license advisor 🙂 I can tell you my experience, but only they can give you accurate and precise information.
Jared
CE - Microsoft
July 11, 2012 at 2:44 am
I'm pretty sure the way Developer is licensed is per user--so you'd need a separate $50 license for each developer, regardless of whether they're all accessing the same instance. However, as SQLKnowItAll says, you're probably best off just calling Microsoft and asking them!
Viewing 15 posts - 1 through 15 (of 21 total)
You must be logged in to reply to this topic. Login to reply