SQL Server 2000 Enterprise Edition

This edition is comprehensive: it includes the complete set of SQL Server database and analysis features and is uniquely characterized by several features that make it the most scalable and available edition of SQL Server 2000. It scales to the performance levels required to support the largest Web sites and enterprise online transaction processing (OLTP) and data warehousing systems. Its support for failover clustering also makes it ideal for any mission critical line-of-business application. Additionally, this edition includes several advanced analysis features that are not included in SQL Server 2000 Standard Edition. 

SQL Server 2000 Enterprise Edition also ships a 64-bit version that is designed to run on highly-scalable Itanium-based servers. This version allows for a greater level of scalability and faster performance with its ability to take advantage of large amounts of direct addressable memory and the enhanced parallel processing capabilities of the Itanium processor. In this paper, both the 32-bit and 64-bit Enterprise Editions of SQL Server will be referred to as "Enterprise Edition" unless specifically calling out differences between the 32-bit and 64-bit offerings.

There are four main areas in which the additional features of SQL Server 2000 Enterprise Edition are most evident:

"    Scalability

"    Availability/uptime

"    Performance

"    Advanced analysis

For each of these areas, the following guidelines will help you decide whether to choose the Enterprise Edition or Standard edition. And, for a detailed list of features included in the various editions of SQL Server 2000, see "Features Supported by the Editions of SQL Server 2000" in SQL Server Books Online.

Scalability Requirements

Whether for data warehousing or for a transactional system, Enterprise Edition scales best. It supports more memory (up to 64 gigabytes [GB] for 32-bit and 512 GB for 64-bit) and processors (up to 32 processors on 32-bit systems and 64 processors on 64-bit) than Standard Edition. Use Enterprise Edition for improved scalability if you:

"    Need more than four CPUs in the database server. For more information, see "Maximum Capacity Specification" in SQL Server Books Online.

"    Need more than 2 GB of physical memory (RAM) in the database server.

"    Will be dividing database workload across independent servers (that is, "scaling out").

"    Are using System Area Networking (SAN) connection technologies between servers (for example, Compaq ServerNet II or Giganet cLAN).

Availability/Uptime

Enterprise Edition includes features that ensure the highest levels of availability for mission critical applications. Use Enterprise Edition for improved availability/uptime if you:

"    Are installing a system that will use failover clustering to ensure that your applications stay up and running even when disaster strikes. The 32-bit Enterprise edition will support up to four nodes in a failover cluster, while the 64-bit Enterprise Edition will support up to eight nodes in a failover cluster.

"    Rely on log shipping to maintain a warm standby server.

Performance

Other enhancements ensure that the performance of Enterprise Edition exceeds that of other editions. Because these features are optimizations for common operations, many if not most applications will realize performance improvements running atop SQL Server 2000 Enterprise Edition. Use Enterprise Edition for improved performance if you:

"    Need to speed up an application by taking full advantage of symmetric multiprocessor (SMP) computers (that is, enhanced parallelism).

"    Need to improve performance of applications that frequently use queries that perform particular types of joins or aggregations, as in reporting applications (using indexed views).

"    Need to speed up transactional applications that do many database reads and full table scans.

Advanced Analysis

In the area of data warehousing and online analytical processing (OLAP), Enterprise Edition offers a variety of unique features including allowing OLAP cubes with very large dimensions to be created, stored, and analyzed. Use Enterprise Edition for your data warehousing and analysis tasks if you:

"    Need to define OLAP partitions.

"    Will be creating and updating large cubes with very large dimensions.

"    Have extremely large dimensions that require relational OLAP (ROLAP) storage.

"    Need to update cubes quickly, in real time.

"    Need to link cubes or provide cube access over the Web.

The 64-bit Enterprise Edition provides the ability to support OLAP cubes with a very large number of dimension members requiring memory usage higher than 3GB. With the availability of more direct addressable memory on the 64-bit platform, faster data aggregation and parallelism in partition processing are possible during cube processing.

Sumber : technet.microsoft.com