Factoring in Head-Room

I strongly recommend that you factor in some room for growth for both the number of processors and the amount of memory when selecting your SQL Server 2005 edition. For example, if your sizing reveals that SQL Server 2005 requires 3 GB of memory and two processors to run your application, you should select the SQL Server 2005 Standard Edition, budget permitting, instead of the Workgroup Edition. This choice will ensure that the deployment will not be at its limits from the start and will provide you some flexibility to add more memory or additional processors if your sizing estimates were not perfectly accurate or your application workload grows, both of which are very probable.

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