Downgrade the SQL Server Editions

Question

I wanted a proper document by Microsoft saying about the Downgrade of SQL Server from Enterprise to Standard Edition or any other, there are many blogs on it but un-authorized, where I require an authorized say or steps on this by Microsoft. So that we can recommend that to the customer with confidence.

Answer 1

Hi NimaiAhluwalia-9887,

There is no MS document about how to downgrade of SQL Server edition. And there is no direct method to do that, you have to uninstall SQL server enterprise and install SQL server standard. You need to backup user and system databases, install SQL Server standard and restore databases.

In addition, before you downgrade, runs this query in all your databases:

SELECT *FROM sys.dm_db_persisted_sku_features

If it returns any rows, you cannot restore that database on Standard Edition.

If the response helped, do "Accept Answer" and upvote it.

Best regards,
Cathy

Answer 2

Perhaps this document: An in-place downgrade of SQL Server is not supported. To downgrade the version of SQL Server, you have to completely uninstall SQL Server, and reinstall it again by using the desired version.

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/azure-sql/virtual-machines/windows/change-sql-server-version#downgrade-the-version-of-sql-server

Answer 3

Good day,

The following document present very clear what change in edition is supported.

You can notice that changing from Enterprise to Standard is not supported (not in the list) and can be done by uninstall + re-install procedure. Notice that on Linux this can be done directly with the command sudo /opt/mssql/bin/mssql-conf setup.

But moving from "Evaluation Enterprise" to "Standards" is supported officially.

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/sql/database-engine/install-windows/supported-version-and-edition-upgrades-version-15?view=sql-server-ver15#-edition-upgrade

Answer 4

I have an use case scripted solution and tech. paper aims to help the audience and other application DBA technologists to understand some of the common architectural patterns and features observed in any application database migration from a legacy Enterprise to a standard Edition as per the business demand and save huge licensing costs and benefit the business. This document describes the steps and execution methodology with attached T-SQL scripts which need to be executed for the downgrade process.

Assumptions:
It is assumed that in the legacy Enterprise database, only the Partition Scheme and Partition Function feature is enabled and the objects like Primary Keys, Alternate Keys, Clustered, Non-Clustered Indexes are falling under these Schemes and functions. The solution is prepared only to handle and remove partition Scheme/functions to make the database a standard edition compatible perspective.
Thanks ,
Nihar
email : niharstock@Stuff .com