Best Edition & Licensing Option(s)

Hi there:

I'm an independent developer with a few projects for which I'd like to use SQL Server 2000, but I'm not exactly sure which licensing option to choose.

I've got a single-processor machine on which I'll be running the SQL Server instance, and this single instance will support up to a dozen or so separate databases, each of which will be used to power a small public Web site. From what I've read thus far, it appears the Standard Edition single-processor version & license would be most appropriate, but $5,000 is a little more than my budget can handle right now. Is there another viable option available for a situation like this?

Many thanks,
ChrisHave you considered MSDE (SQL Desktop Engine). It is ditributed free with Microsoft Office 2000/XP. There is no licensing.

The only limit is that a dtabase can't grow bigger than 1.5GB hich could be sufficient in your case.

Try these links

Choosing an edition
http://www.microsoft.com/sql/techinfo/planning/SQLResKChooseEd.asp

More about msde:
http://www.microsoft.com/sql/techinfo/development/2000/MSDE2000.asp|||Can MSDE be licensed to run in production? (From what I've read, it appears it can, as long as one possesses a properly licensed version of one of a number of MS products, including VS.NET.)

Any help is sincerely appreciated.

Thanks,
Chris|||Let say you develop an application using MS VS.NET, you can include MSDE as part of your application as the Data Engine.

So in your case it's fine if you are using ASP.Net