An alternative to SQL Server or SQL Express for TGS/GMUD?

[Vitoc]

I started creating the install logic this last weekend which is going to create the database with the required tables on an existing SQL Server when I decided to see if there were any alternatives which didn't require SQL Server or SQL Express installed.  I started looking into something called SQL CE (Compact Edition) which appears to be built into .NET.  I've already got the part of the installer finished that creates the database and tables in SQL CE (which are stored in a single file).  Now I just need to modify the code generator to spit out the data access code to talk with the SQL CE instance and then we'll see if the performance is acceptable.  If it is, and I think it will be, this means installing TGS and GMUD can be done in a single step, greatly simplifying the deployment process. 

This doesn't mean TGS/GMUD won't work on SQL Server or SQL Express, and those two alternatives will still be faster and more dependable, but they will probably be overkill for most people, especially if someone isn't familiar with setting up and maintaining a SQL Server instance.

Cliff's notes:
More than likely, one less step will be involved in setting up TGS and GreaterMUD. 

[Colt]

Sounds Good

[Vitoc]

Well, I finished updating my code generator and after working out all the kinks and doing some performance testing between SQL CE and an instance of SQL Server 2005 running on the GMUDServer, I'm a little dumbfounded by the results.

Here are the results of a test where 1000 records are inserted, then retrieved one at a time, then updated, and finally deleted.  The numbers represent the total # of milliseconds the operation took for all 1000 records:

Insert   Select   Update   Delete
132   162   167   191   //sql ce using ad hoc statements, 1000 records
9891   100   9804   9279   //sql server using stored procs, 1000 records

Maybe SQL CE is doing some sort of buffering that SQL Server isn't, I don't know.  I never would have guessed this would be the result, but it's definitely encouraging that SQL CE appears to be perfect for TGS and GreaterMUD.

I'll scan through the SQL Server code and see if I can't find some other cause for this, but I don't think the bottleneck is in the code or the stored procs, it's probably a configuration on the server.

[The Crazy Animal]

Nice... It is surprising that it looks like its out preforming the full version. I wouldn't have guessed that it would do that.