Difference between Enterprise and Standared Editions of SQL Server

SQL Server 2008 Enterprise is a comprehensive data platform for running mission critical online transaction processing (OLTP), data warehousing (DW) and business intelligence (BI) applications. SQL Server 2008 Enterprise provides enterprise class scalability, high availability and security to meet the high demands of these applications. 

Enterprise is ideally suited for the following usage scenarios:

- Mission critical deployments requiring high availability and uptime

- Existing large scale OLTP deployments

- OLTP deployments that expect to grow rapidly in the future

- Large scale reporting and analysis deployments

- Data Warehousing

- Server Consolidation 

SQL Server 2008 Standard is a full featured data platform for running departmental online transaction processing (OLTP) and business intelligence (BI) applications. SQL Server 2008 Standard provides best-in-class ease of use and manageability for running departmental applications. 

Standard is ideally suited for the following usage scenarios:

- Departmental deployments

- Small to medium scale OLTP deployments

- OLTP deployments that are not expected to rapidly grow in the future

- Reporting and analysis deployments  

I would start by reviewing the following web link which has a much more detailed comparison of these two products and their features.

http://download.microsoft.com/download/2/D/F/2DF66C0C-FFF2-4F2E-B739-BF4581CEE533/SQLServer2008EnterpriseandStandardFeature%20Compare.pdf

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