Steve Jones (Blog/@Way0utWest) recently wrote a great blog post proposing that Microsoft should go from having edition-only features (most of them are "Enterprise-Only") to unlocking all features in all editions and instead licensing based on the scale of your actual server (CPU/RAM/etc.)
https://voiceofthedba.wordpress.com/2011/10/18/give-us-all-the-features/
Today, Steve opened a Connect item asking Microsoft to make these changes, titled "Include All Features in All Editions and License by Scale":
https://connect.microsoft.com/SQLServer/feedback/details/696092/include-all-features-in-all-editions-and-license-by-scale
To vote, you need to register on Microsoft's Connect site if you haven't already done so, but since Connect is the location for all of us to request feature changes (and rate others' requests) it doesn't hurt to be registered.
I voted YES - and I think you should too. I know there have been multiple times when I have needed some feature (compression, transparent data encryption, etc.) and we didn't use it because we didn't want to pay $20K+ per CPU for an Enterprise license on a little implementation in a firewalled DMZ.
Paying based on scale rather than functionality makes sense to me - read Steve's blog post and see if you agree!
Thanks for the mention. This certainly is very annoying, especially for TDE.
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