Lately I have been struggling on a specific server in an environment I have been working on. Due to the need for partitioning in the cube, the project demanded an Enterprise Edition of SQL Server 2008R2. The only installation available, with Ent. Ed., had some 80+ databases, and several cubes, installed and running.
As I browsed through the databases, I noticed that quite a few of them could be run on a Standard Edition. I then turned to create a T-SQL statement, that would show which Ent. Ed. features was in use, in each database.
EXEC sp_MSforeachdb N'SELECT * FROM sys.dm_db_persisted_sku_features' GO
Turns out, none, zero, zip, nada of the databases uses any Ent. Ed. features. Imagine that.
- Further reading:
http://www.mssqltips.com/sqlservertip/2108/identify-database-features-restricted-to-a-specific-edition-of-sql-server-2008/
That is crazy!!!! What a great imagination to try that!!
IMHO it is possible to develop the design of the cube inclusive the partitioning on a Enterprise Edition and take the cube with the help of the xmla-CreateDatabase-Script to the Standard Edition. Once created with partitioning the update of the cube isn’t a problem.