Yes, we have an SBS 2003 Premium server with two apps running on SQL 2000.
One app runs just fine, but the other is slow (at the best of times) and bloody unusable far too often.
The database vendor says that their app should run on its own box, and my client isn't going to do that until he has at least some level of confidence that this just isn't matter of either tweaking the server or maybe even some bad code.
The vendor has produced Access-based databases until about a year ago, and since they've gone SQL it's been a pig. It wasn't terrible at first, and the client was thinking it was worth it for all the new functionality. However, over the year, it's crawled down to a point where it's holding up production, some screen changes taking over 30 seconds.
The funny thing is, the database that's giving us all the grief is relatively small - about 800 MB. The accounting application, running on the same server is about 13 GB in size and never even hiccups. This, more than anything, has my cleint asking me to assist in trying to find out why.
In my travels I've heard a number of people crying out that SQL on an Exchange server or a Domain Controller is some kind of blasphemy, so I thought I'd ask.
However, as I mentioned, I understand the SBS Monitoring HAS to be on MSDE - we'll just need to take it on faith that it's not the MSDE causing the issue. MSDE is apparently governed in some way to reduce its use of resources (and to sell more SQL Server, I'd bet), but since the databases in question are clearly using the full-blown SQL instance, it's probably not an issue.
One thing about SBS is that it tries to be everything for everybody. When enlisting the help of a specialist on one thing or another (Exchange, SQL, whatever) all you ever hear about is how putting Exchange on a DC or SQL Server on a DC is a bad parctice. I figure, if they put enough faith in one or the other of the Microsoft products to feel confident enough to express such an opinion, why not have confidence that Microsoft wouldn't bundle them unless they figure it would work?
SBS may once have been a minor offering by Microsoft to try to get bit more of a market they were failing in, but I see it as a major part of their sales now and have a hard time believing that they would bundle these components together when there was a risk that it would blow up the first time someone actually used it.
Anyway, I have blasted MS on many points in the past, but I just don't think they have it coming this time...
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