Data Compression in SQL Server 2017 Standard Edition

Question

I have set up a SQL Server 2017 Standard Edition instance and I am experimenting with data compression. One thing I noticed is that the SQL Server uses only one core for compression, which on a large table (>300GB) takes a very long time to complete. Incidentally, a SQL 2014 Dev Edition uses all available cores for the same operation and takes a fraction of the time.

Is this expected behavior? If yes, is it limited to when the table is compressed the first time ie via ALTER TABLE? Will SQL Server SE only ever use 1 core when inserting and/or extracting data from a compressed table?

Answer 1

(IMHO) This is expected behavior and limitation of Standard Edition.

While some of the Enterprise features been unlocked in SQL Server 2016 SP1, Microsoft intentionally keeps plenty optimizations like multi-core maintenance tasks only in Enterprise edition. Because it simply costs 4x more than Standard. So companies that really need such grade of functionality have to buy premium offering.

According to this document :

Enterprise edition:

The premium offering, SQL Server Enterprise edition delivers comprehensive high-end datacenter capabilities with blazing-fast performance , unlimited virtualization, and end-to-end business intelligence - enabling high service levels for mission-critical workloads and end-user access to data insights.

Standard edition:

SQL Server Standard edition delivers basic data management and business intelligence database for departments and small organizations to run their applications and supports common development tools for on-premise and cloud - enabling effective database management with minimal IT resources.

Similar limitations of Standard Edition:

• single core index rebuilt
• max 25% of RAM can be used by columnstore etc etc