Should I install SQL Server 2008 on my DEV machine?
I am wondering if there will be problems installing SQL Server 2008 on my development machine while our production server is 2005? For example. something changed so my 2005 / sps / functions / views 2005 databases won't work correctly or other problems I should be thinking about?
Would love to do this to test the drive of the new SQL Server but still be able to develop the old product and prefer not to install both ...
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Personally, I wouldn't. I prefer to keep my Dev machine as close to a replica of the live environment as possible (from a software standpoint, at least the physical separation is somewhat more complicated!).
In many ways the two versions are very similar, and SQL Server 2008 supports compatibility modes, but no matter what you do, this is not SQL Server 2005. If your production server is not using 2008, don’t use all the features, so whatever you do doing, increases the likelihood that something is not working quite well without getting any benefit.
Presumably the reason you want to do this is to play around with 2008 and see what its new features are? In this case, I would recommend creating a virtual machine with SQL Server 2008 and then you can play around as much as you want without jeopardizing the environment in which you need to work normally.
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Just be aware that some tools may not connect correctly to SQL2008.
Example VS-DBPro2008. You cannot use most of the useful features without installing GDR-RC, which is still opaque.
Also, if you build something in 2008 you won't be able to detach / attach or back up / restore from 2008 → 2005.
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I did it without too much trouble. When you create a database, you can choose a compatibility mode such as 2005 or 2000.
You may also find this helpful: Breaking Changes to Database Engine Functions in SQL Server 2008 http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms143179.aspx
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Yes. We do just that, even though our production systems are 2005 and there were very few problems. While there are some compatibility issues that you want to know about, there are also several benefits:
- Sql Management Studio is based on VS 2008, so if you are using VS 2008 you are not installing VS 2005
- Sql Management Studio is faster and supports some cool new features like intellisense
Our build machines have Sql 2005 which runs all of our unit and integration tests. Our development and production virtual machines, which mimic our production systems, also include Sql 2005. This way, we ensure that our SQL and DDL are production-compatible.
It is not possible to create a development environment that duplicates your production environment. We just install too many things on our machines for our tasks or downtime.
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