Use SQL 2008 Express As A Central Management Server

<div><p>I had the chance to catch <a href="http://www.brentozar.com" target="_blank">Brent Ozar's</a> webcast last week on <a href="http://www.quest.com/events/listdetails.aspx?contentid=9464&technology=&prod=&prodfamily=&loc=" target="_blank">creating a poor man's CMDB</a>. In it he talked at length about the <a href="http://sqlserverpedia.com/wiki/Central_Management_Server" target="_blank">Central Management Server</a> feature in SQL 2008. While I use SSMS 2008 my only SQL 2008 database installs so far are running inside Virtual PCs that aren't always on. Fortunately, there is another option – SQL 2008 Express. It's lightweight, free, and best of all it can be used as a CMS. The only catch is that if you put your install on anything other than your local machine (which you're going to do since you're using it as a CMS, otherwise what's the point?) you'll have to enable remote connections. No worries, it's actually an easy task to do – just follow these <a href="http://www.linglom.com/2009/03/28/enable-remote-connection-on-sql-server-2008-express/" target="_blank">step by step</a> instructions and you'll be all set.</p> <p><strong>Update – </strong>It didn't take me long after I posted this to realize that there are cases for running SQL Express locally in order to take advantage of a CMS. One example is if you frequently run multi-server queries and you want to create logical groups of servers where a server belongs to more than one group. Another is if you're a one person shop and you want to use Brent's <a href="http://sqlserverpedia.com/wiki/CMDB" target="_blank">CMDB scripts</a> to gather data. <strike>That makes me wonder, though – why didn't Microsoft just add the ability to register a server in more than one group into Object Explorer in the first place? Hmm, I smell a </strike><a href="http://connect.microsoft.com/SQLServer" target="_blank"><strike>Connect</strike></a><strike> request cooking!</strike></p> <p><strong>Update 2 –</strong> OK I am a <a href="http://www.google.com/search?q=define%3Adolt&rls=com.microsoft:en-us&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&startIndex=&startPage=1&rlz=1I7GGIC_en" target="_blank">dolt</a>. In my first update I meant to say Registered Servers, not Object Explorer. I've posted a correction <a href="http://kendalvandyke.blogspot.com/2009/04/register-server-more-than-once-in-ssms.html">here</a>. </p> </div>

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