Summary: This page lists the platforms supported by SQL Server Mobile Edition and provides links to other SQL Server Mobile Edition resources.

Supported Platforms

SQL Server 2005 Mobile Edition (SQL Mobile) supports a variety of Windows Mobile and in certain cases non-Windows Mobile environments.

Supported Deployment Environments

*Pocket PC
*Windows Mobile 5.0 Pocket PC
*Pocket PC 2003SE
*Pocket PC 2003
*Smartphone
*Windows Mobile 5.0 Smartphone
*Windows CE
*Windows CE 5.0
*Windows CE 4.2 - Not supported by the original SQL Mobile release but an updated version of SQL Mobile that adds support for Windows CE 4.2 is expected in the same timeframe as Service Pack 1 for the .NET Compact Framework 2.0
*Tablet PC
*Supports all Tablet PC OS versions

Supported Development Environments

*Visual Studio 2005 - Any computer with Visual Studio 2005 installed
** AND running one of the following Operating Systems*
*Windows XP Professional
*Windows Server 2003
*Windows XP Media Center Edition
*Windows 2000 Professional SP4 or later
*Windows 2000 Server SP4 or later

Support Server Environments

*SQL Server - Any computer with one of the following SQL Server versions installed
*SQL Server 2005
*SQL Server 2000 SP3a or later
** AND Internet Information Sever (IIS)*
*IIS 5.0 or later
** AND running one of the following Operating Systems*
*Windows XP Professional (32-bit)
*Windows Server 2003 (32-bit)
*Windows Professional 2000 SP4 or later
*Windows Server 2000 SP4 or later
Note: Currently, having Visual Studio Express or SQL Express installed will also allow SQL Mobile to be installed and run. Although, SQL Mobile does work in these environments, they are not officially supported. As a result, it is unclear as to whether SQL Mobile will continue to work with Visual Studio Express and/or SQL Express in the future.
Additional information about installation requirements can be found at SQL Server 2005 Mobile Edition System Requirements

SQL Mobile Scalability

SQL Mobile is a powerful and scalable database and just as with SQL Server or any other database, proper design and implementation choices become increasingly important as the volume of data grows. The following are some guidelines for getting the most out of SQL Mobile.
*Maximum Number of records - SQL Mobile has no restriction on the number of records that can be in a database table. This limit is more a function of space available on the storage media. That said, for best performance it is generally recommended that the number of records in a table not exceed 100,000. The 100,000 record limit is not absolute as many things affect performance such as record size and query complexity; however, 100,000 records should serve as a good guideline. One key thing to keep in mind is that when publishing data from a server database table to a SQL Mobile database, you should closely analyze your mobile applications data requirements and look for opportunities to reduce the amount of data actually sent to the device. For information on using Merge Replication with SQL Server 2005 to efficiently publish data to a SQL Mobile database checkout Merge Replication Performance Improvements in SQL Server 2005
*Storage Media Affect on Performance - One of the most significant impacts on SQL Mobile database performance is the storage media. The read/write performance of a particular storage card in general will impact your application's performance when interacting with the database more then just about anything you can do programmatically. Different types and brands of storage cards differ tremendoously. In extreme cases, performance differences between storage cards can vary by as much as 300%. In general, card performance roughly correlates to price but not absolutly. There are a number of websites that publish storage card performance comparisons. In many cases, a good resource for storage card performance information is digital photography websites. The following are a few sites that have published storage card performance comparisons.
*Pocketgpsworld.com Storage Card Comparison
*Mobile-sg.com - speed tests of various cards in specific devices
*Digital Photography Review#fwperf
*Digital Photography Insights_page.asp?cid=6007-6111
*Indexing - Just as in SQL Server, queries against a large SQL Mobile table will generally perform better if the queries can take advantage of indexing. There is however a key difference in SQL Server and SQL Mobile index handling - SQL Mobile queries never use more then one (1) index. This means that if your application commonly performs queries that apply a WHERE clause against multiple columns, your application may benefit from creating a single index that includes all of the columns in the WHERE clause even if those columns already exist in seperate indeces. As is always the case, you need to balance the improved query performance of additional indeces with the additional costs of maintaining those indeces when INSERT/UPDATE/DELETE operations are performed.
*Use the Result Set - The SqlCeResultSet provides an updatable/scrollable cursor directly into a SQL Mobile table. Using a SqlCeResultSet consumes far less resources then a DataSet because the SqlCeResultSet passes data directly between the table and program whereas the DataSet must duplicate the table structure in memory and then load the table data into the DataSet's memeory structure before making the data available to the program. The SqlCeResultSet also provides significantly better performance then the DataSet often providing a 3x to 5x performance improvement. For more information on SqlCeResultSet, see the following.
*GeneratingTypedResultSets
*PreventingAutomaticTableOpenOfTypedResultSets
*Table Direct Mode - Table direct mode allows an application to bypass the SQL Mobile query processor and operate directly on the underlying table structure. Table Direct mode provides the fastest mechanism available for locating a record in a table and is useful for scenarios where an application must quickly position to a specific record in a large table. For detailed information and examples of using Table Direct Mode checkout SQL Server CE and Scalability_sqlserverce.asp . Although this article was originally written for SQL Server CE 2.0, all of the concepts discussed remain true.

More SQL Server 2005 Mobile Edition Information

SQL Mobile on MSDN