>Anything but SQL Server a non-starter for both me and corporate.

Too bad :-/

>I seem to remember the license has to do with simultaneous connections so I was wondering if 50 offices which never connected more than 10 at a time need more than ten licenses.
>
>This sounds like a job for Craig ! <s>

Actually, this might not be too difficult:

- if SQL Server 2008 can enforce a hard limit on # of connections (say, 10)
- if you (can) get a distinct/detectable error when another client attempts to exceed that limit

You could trap for the error, and get the client to wait for a random amount of time between, say, 30 and 60 seconds before trying to reconnect. This is similar to the scheme Ethernet employs to manage collisions while remaining "fair" to all computers on a given segment.

The real problem with this simple idea is that you probably have a bunch of users at corporate, so you need more than 10 connection licenses (or whatever SQL 2008 calls them). Unless you can set up separate pools, the remote clients will hog up all the connections.

One potential workaround for this would be to implement connection limits at the VPN level, i.e. allow no more than 10 simultaneous VPN connections. That way, they could only use a maximum of 10 SQL Server connections.

Yet another possibility would be to limit the number of connections per role. If you configure remote clients to connect to a (say) RemoteUpdate account or role, maybe you can limit its number of simultaneous connections.

>
>
>>>Assume a server in the corporate office with Sql Server 2008.
>>>
>>>Offices all over the country, connected to corporate on a VPN.
>>>
>>>VFP program, currently with data in Fox, which has data to be sent to corporate once a day. Framework handles remote views very well, very comfortable doing them. Framework has a connection manager, so each office will open only one connection to server.
>>>
>>>How would I want to work the licensing on the SQL Server. Offices can stagger times for update, full update procedure should take no more than 5-10 minues. No need for a full-time connection. 100 or more field offices.
>>>
>>>Future design involves converting backend in the field to local SQL Express 2008 databases. What would be my options in that case for connecting to and updating to and from corporate server using SQL Server services?
>>
>>One possibility would be to install a FOSS DB server like PostgreSQL or MySQL at corporate, and have the field offices talk to that. No licensing issues whatsoever.
>>
>>You would then need a process at corporate that periodically queried the FOSS DB, looking for new updates to move across to the central SQL Server 2008 database.