Another consideration for your SMS 2.0 implementation is the version of SQL Server that you will use for your SMS site database. SMS 2.0 supports the following two versions:
If you are upgrading SMS 1.2 sites to SMS 2.0, SQL Server version 6.5 (with Service Pack 4) is an acceptable choice.
SQL Server version 7.0 offers performance and operational improvements that make it the better choice. The SMS site database at a central site can be quite large, and the online backup, automatic query optimizer, and statistics update features are likely to reduce the maintenance time required by SQL Server version 7.0.
For information about recommended installation approaches, see “SMS and SQL Server” later in this chapter.