Do I need to Purchase Microsoft SQL Server Standard?

Acctivate already includes Microsoft SQL Server 2019 Express. However, there are capacity and performance limitations that other purchased versions can circumvent.

Acctivate includes the Microsoft SQL Server 2019 Express database engine.  This is the free edition of Microsoft SQL Server.  The Express edition does have some limitations in which may warrant some companies to upgrade to the Standard edition of Microsoft SQL Server.  This upgrade depends on specific business requirements, such as capacity and performance.

Read our Microsoft SQL Server Express Edition article for more information

We have also published instructions to Upgrade Microsoft SQL Server if you need to install a newer version for increased capacity. In short, a company should consider moving to SQL standard if they meet one or more of the criteria below:

  1. There are more than 10 users using Acctivate concurrently.
  2. A high volume of orders are coming in daily, especially from different sources (EDI, Webstore, import.)
  3. Posting transaction or performing other database queries are slower than expected.

If a company is nearing 10gb and is receiving a warning, then SQL Server Standard becomes a requirements as SQL Express is limited to 10gb only. Please contact Microsoft Sales for more information about the needs of your business as Alterity does not distribute SQL standard.

If using an Acctivate server installer for a version prior to 11.0, the database engine included would instead be Microsoft SQL Server 2014 Express.  Acctivate would specifically use the 32-bit version so the database instance installed won't be able to updated to a 64-bit instance.  However, 32-bit databases can still be restored or attached to a 64-bit instance so only a new instance is required instead of a completely new database or company.