What is the difference between the 2 database program for BES v4.13 for GroupWise 7? Plan to have less than 15 BES users. Currently will have one BES running all BES services?

If I pick MSDE (as I don't need to buy SQL2000), will I regret the decision? And if yes, can I have the BES server also as the SQL 2000 database server?

Thanks
Che

The versions of SQL 2000 is the same for GW, Domino, or Exchange ...

I would stick with MSDE as it is free and can easily support a few hundred users.

You might look to Microsoft for a comparison of the editions.

You could in theory have the BES be a DB server for other services but it isn't recommended due to the built in governor of MSDE.

From a database structure standpoint MSDE is the same as SQL 2000 Standard / Enterprise.

I agree with hdawg. You can use the free MSDE version for now (15 users is peanuts) and if you want to upgrade to SQL, you can upgrade your MSDE database easily.

SQL vs MSDE is like anything light vs feature rich. SQL handles more requests per second and you get a nice interface. MSDE is super basic, simple to maintain and it is upgradeable.

Enjoy.

I have a similar number of users (17) and don't regret the decision to stay on MSDE2000. Like Hdawg said (and is also RIM's stance) is you don't need SQL until you have more than a few hundred users.

Our emails and calendar updates get pushed to the devices within 2-20 seconds and PIM sync (address book journal/memos) are synced in about 20-50 seconds. I don't perceive MSDE (according to the logs) to be a bottleneck at all for my setup. I do think this is really amazing given that MSDE has a governor, yet BES can cope with that just fine in small deployments (even past a hundred users) is amazing.

If anything lowering the latency (if you are above the 100-200ms range) between the BES and your mail store is probably a bigger win, performance wise.

Make sure you also backup your MSDE database.