sql express 2008 & tde - security

Good afternoon,
Anyone know if sql express 2008 version, the option of using TDE (Transparent Data Encryption).
I tried using it for testing and the server gave me the following error.
"The transparent data encryption is not available in the publication of this instance of SQL Server. See Books Online for more details on feature support in different editions of SQL Server."
Thanks and a greeting.

TDE is available only in Enterprise editions AFAIK.

As mentioned, Microsoft supports TDE only in Enterprise Edition. However, there are several third party products that will provide TDE to all editions and verions of SQL Server, including SQL Express. One of those products being ours: Encryptionizer for SQL Server. Another one that I am aware of is DBDefence. Internally they work very differently though: Encryptionizer sits between SQL Server and the Operating System, while DBDefence injects itself into the SQL process running in memory to change the behavior of the process.

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SQL Azure Collation

If you were building a new database in SQL Azure, which collation would you use?
SQL_Latin_General_CP1_AS_AI or Latin_General_AS_AI?
Reason I ask is that the default collation on SQL Azure is SQL_Latin_General_CP1_AS_AI as described here:
https://azure.microsoft.com/en-gb/documentation/articles/sql-database-general-limitations/
BUT
If you look at the MSDN article about Collation it states,
SQL Server supports Windows collations. SQL Server also supports a
limited number (<80) of collations called SQL Server collations which
were developed before SQL Server supported Windows collations. SQL
Server collations are still supported for backward compatibility, but
should not be used for new development work. For more information
about Windows collations, see Windows Collation Name (Transact-SQL).
Taken from: https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-GB/library/ms180175.aspx
This suggests that SQL collation support is not recommended for new database development, yet that conflicts with the fact that the SQL Azure collation is SQL_Latin by default.
Appreciate people's thoughts on this.
Thanks.
For me the answer is down to what you are planning to host on the database. If the application in question requires a SQL collation then you obviously have no choice, if it doesn't then your good to go.
I don't believe there is a contradiction, the documentation states:
SQL Server also supports a limited number (<80) of collations called SQL Server collations which were developed before SQL Server supported Windows collations. SQL Server collations are still supported for backward compatibility, but should not be used for new development work.
The key part here is "still supported for backward compatibility". A number of server based applications require SQL collation and are just getting updated to remove that requirement.
In summary: It all depends on the application you are deploying. If you don't require a SQL collation then don't use one, as the documentation suggests this is just around for backward compatibility.

Use SQL Server CE with node-webkit

I need to work on an old application written with WPF and MS SQL Server Compact Edition. As a requirement the app is executed from an USB stick (where also all the data is persisted) and the same should apply for the new system.
In the new application I would like to use NoSQL db to store the data (node-sqlite3 or npm-nosql). However the records currently stored on the SQL CE database must be migrated to the new db or the same SQL CE database used again (even if I prefer to avoid this option). In the latter case, I have seen there is node-mssql as database connector, but SQL Server CE is not among the supported databases.
The current SQL CE schema is extremely simple, only 4 tables and less than 300 records in total. The application is executed locally by a single user.
Is there a way to export the SQL CE database so that I can import it into the new database? Are there better databases to be used with node-webkit other than the ones aforementioned?
The driver you're looking for is:
https://www.npmjs.com/package/ce-mssql
However - I'm afraid you'll need to fork a nodejs process from your webkit application, and feature your queries through web API - this will put you at home with Angular.

Linux ODBC driver for ProvideX database

I'm assigned to find a solution for an issue with connecting proprietary ProvideX database to a running web application developed on a OSX platform using PHP language. What I've figured is that if there will be a possible way for querying data from ProvideX, The web app could pull data and update itself with live data. ODBC is what I found as an effective and possible solution.
The question is that, is there any Linux ODBC driver for provideX so the web API would be able to communicate to ProvideX database? I know that there's one for windows platform since ProvideX has been designed to work with windows systems.
Any thought or writeup I could go over to find out more on this issue?
Don't try to go strictly through the ODBC driver. It works nice if you're just looking at the data in an ODBC compliant application or service, but for web applications PxPlus offers a different way to access the database. Look for PxPlus web server, which may or may not be included in your installation.

Windows Media Server Streaming from database

Is it possible to somehow set up WMS to stream the content from a database only using Windows Server 2003 Standard edition?
I know it can be done using custom-plugin data source but that is only enabled with Windows Server 2003 Enterprise Edition.
Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but your best bet is probably:
Maintain copies of your data outside of the database (I don't know the details of your setup, so this may defeat the purpose of what you're trying to do). Basically, keep a file cache of the content you want to stream and write an application to keep the file cache synchronized with the database.
Switch to Windows Server 2008. The Web Server and Standard editions for 2008 support custom plugins and should be much more affordable than the Enterprise editions (I believe the Web Server edition is under $500).
Maybe someone else has some clever solution, but these are the only options I'm aware of.
There is nothing that ships out of the box but WMS does support additional custom plug-ins. From a performance perspective you might want to consider why you need to do so. The easiest way in my mind would be to write an HTTP wrapper around the database and use the built-in HTTP streaming data source. The knowledge and skills required to write the HTTP wrapper is more plentiful than writing WMS plugins. If you do have a use case for this consider SQL Server 2008's filestream feature as it is designed for giving you the relational power with file system performance.

WSS 3.0 Internal Database

What is the internal storage mechanism of WSS 3.0? Does it need SQL Server 2005 or can we use SQL Server 2005 Embedded Edition automatically installed with WSS 3.0? If yes then what is the limit of the content for a web application if it uses SSEE?
Let say I have created a web application in WSS 3.0 then how much data can be stored within it? How much data can I store for lists and document libraries? How many folders can I create inside a document library?
This is quite a common misconception - the paranoid amongst us may even thing that MSFT doesn't do much to clear this up as it pushes people along the route of buying SQL Server...
Tin hats away though ...
When you use the "Basic" install option during MOSS 2007 installation it does install and use SQL Server 2005 Express Edition (see Stand alone installation) and you do have a 4GB limit.
When you use the "Basic" install option during WSS 3.0 installation it DOES NOT use SQL Express, it uses something called Windows Internal Database and it DOES NOT have a 4GB size limit.
Its hard to find an authoritative reference on this (tin hats again) but this one by Mark Walsh and marked as correct by an MSFT moderator is about the best I can find.
Beside the database limitation there are some other SharePoint limitations and advises regarding the numbers of items per library or numbers of site collections per web application or content database.
MOSS Limitations 1
MOSS Limitations 2
It uses SQL Server 2005 Express Edition which I believe has a limit of 4GB per database. You could create multiple content databases for separate site collections but there may also be some performance limitations in the express edition.
Here is a page that compares editions:
http://www.microsoft.com/sqlserver/2005/en/us/compare-features.aspx
Josh pretty much has the answer. As for the "how many documents and lists and whatevers" question, the answer is "as many as you want so long as you don't slam into the 4gb limit."
I'd also note that if you start getting near that 4gb limit, you can always upgrade to full-blown SQL server with very minimal pain so it is a decent place to start.
The real place it falls down is management tools (ie--backup), but you can script that from the command line pretty effectively.
When installing SharePoint 2007 you can specify the SQL Server database to connect to yourself. If you don't do this SharePoint will use the Windows Internal Database, otherwise known as WYukon. This database is not the same as SQL Express and there's two key differences. (1) WYukon isn't artificially limited in database size or performance. (2) You can't connect to a WYukon database with a regular database connection string.
Here's a link with some (minimal) information about WYukon.
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=30A7365B-91C5-4C28-85A5-9AB861168C0E
Regards,
Paul

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