What is our primary use case?
My main use case for SQL Server 2014 Express is that I use it for my internship. In the company, I am also working with SQL Server 2014 version, and I also use it for my academic project. As a student, it helps me understand how the database is stored. Many features of SQL Server 2014 Express are helpful, especially how the actual database works in a real scenario, not just theory. We are storing real-time data. SQL Server 2014 Express supports T-SQL, which is a structured query language. During my internship, I worked on storing and managing project data, client data, writing SQL queries, optimizing the queries, creating tables, and altering the tables. SQL Server 2014 Express was easy to set up on my system, easy to build, and easy to understand. I used SSMS to interact with the database. The interface was simple, so I did not face many difficulties while I was learning. What I appreciate most is the support for important skills including joins, stored procedures, and basics, which helped me improve my practical skills.
In my internship, I have a specific example of a project where I used SQL Server 2014 Express when my company was working with law firm data. We needed to manage the data, and I will explain how our product is working. If one law firm uses our product, they will provide their data. We have to store it in our local database system and then we need to process that data. First, we are storing the data, then we are processing the data. After that, we will create reports and we will give them import-export functionality. They will also be able to review the documents. We are providing these kinds of features. For this, we need to process the metadata and we have to store all of these things in our database. For that, we are using SQL Server 2014 Express for storing the data, creating data, storing the database, and storing the data of the law firms' files, as well as different kinds of mails. We are extracting the mail from the metadata including sender, receiver, CC, subject, title, and the attachment file. For this kind of data, we are using SSMS 2014.
What is most valuable?
What I appreciate most is the support for important skills including joins, stored procedures, and basics, which helped me improve my practical skills. SSMS provides a perfect error line. When I get an error, it will show the syntax error, which line has the error, and how I can reduce or solve this error. It will write the proper error message explaining the type of error and providing solutions.
I also learned how to create and alter the queries. SQL Server 2014 Express also provides trace and control. From the back-end side and front-end side, we are adding the data, and when we are giving the stored procedure to the trace, it will provide the parameters. These kinds of different features are provided by SQL Server and SSMS.
SQL Server 2014 Express is perfect for a student's free version or a small type of application. The best features SQL Server 2014 Express offers are that it is free and perfect for students. It is a free version because students do not purchase more costly products. It is easy to install, easy to use, and easy to understand. Microsoft also provides proper general documentation on how to use it, how to install it, how to work with the data, how to work with the database, and how to do these kinds of things. It has proper documentation. It also supports stored procedures, views, cluster and non-cluster indexing, full text search, T-SQL, try and catch, and transaction supports. It is an older version, but with modern features, it would be the best.
SQL Server 2014 Express helped me gain a real-world application and practical database skills. It is stable for small projects. It is completely free and has a rich feature set. It also supports stored procedures, triggers, views, and XMLs. It uses the same machine as the experience. It is great for learning.
The best thing is also the proper error handling because when I am getting an error such as a syntax error, if I am creating something and I mistakenly write the wrong spelling for create, it will tell me that I made a mistake in creating a table.
SQL Server 2014 Express has positively impacted my work by ensuring that our pure data and our full data are stored in an SSMS server. We are totally dependent on SSMS for a database.
What needs improvement?
However, I also realized its limitation when I tried working on a large database. It is not perfect because it provides 10 GB per database. If we are storing a large database or large data, 10 GB is not proper for storing. Overall, I would recommend SQL Server 2014 Express for a student and as a free version you can use it, but not for a large database or a company database. There are also performance issues.
SQL Server 2014 Express is fast, but it is not perfectly scalable because it provides only 10 GB per database size. However, it has proper error handling.
I think SQL Server 2014 Express can be improved by first improving the database size. Making the maximum size a user can have per database is needed. Right now it is 10 GB. Increase it to a maximum so a user can save as much data as they want, approaching unlimited data storage. Additionally, the operating system should be supported on every Windows variation, including Linux and every other operating system. A backup option is also needed because SSMS is not providing built-in backup features.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using SQL Server 2014 Express for six to eight months.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
In my experience, SQL Server 2014 Express is stable. SQL Server 2014 Express is stable for small projects. It is completely free and has a rich feature set.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Regarding SQL Server 2014 Express's scalability in my experience, it is scalable because at one time, many users are using SSMS 2014. It works perfectly, so it is perfectly scalable.
SQL Server 2014 Express is fast, but it is not perfectly scalable because it provides only 10 GB per database size.
How are customer service and support?
I have never reached out for help with SQL Server 2014 Express, but customer support is the best.
How was the initial setup?
SQL Server 2014 Express was easy to set up on my system, easy to build, and easy to understand.
What other advice do I have?
Overall, I would recommend SQL Server 2014 Express for a student. I advise others looking into using SQL Server 2014 Express that if you are storing a structured database, then you have to use SQL or SSMS server because it is the perfect and best choice for storing structured data. My review rating for SQL Server 2014 Express is 8 out of 10.