Remote connection of SQL Server 2008 Express

Question

I have 2 servers (a physical and a local VM) in which one of them has SQL Server 2008 R2 Enterprise Edition (physical) installed and the other (local VM) I have SQL Server 2008 Express Edition.

After facing problems with remote connection in the Express version, I found out that I should enable and run the service "SQL Server Browser" in addition to other firewall settings, TCP/IP.

My question is this: To remotely access the server with the Enterprise version I do not need to be running the SQL Server navigation service, but the Express version I need to let it run. Would anyone know why this occurs?

Answer 1

According to the Technet:

The SQL Server Browser listens to incoming requests from features of Microsoft SQL Server and provides information about the instances installed from SQL Server on the computer

The difference between conventional and Express installations is that by default SQL Express uses a named instance SQLEXPRESS. Other editions use the default instance name MSSQLSERVER, instance that can be omitted when remotely accessing the server.

Because the physical instance is not named and is enabled in the standard port (1433), after the release of Firewall and TCP/ IP, it is already ready for use and does not need the service of Navegador do SQL Server qualified.

According to this question from dba.stackexchange, this service is disabled by default because of a threat of denial of service calling for SQL Slammer.