title: Complications with SQL Server database having different collation than the server default?
body: <p>We are in the process of migrating databases off an old SQL Server 2k EE server with default collation "Latin1_General_CI_AS" onto new SQL Server 2005 &amp; 2008 servers with default collation "SQL_Latin1_General_CP1_CI_AS". There are no international characters that would require Unicode that I know of, so the two codepages are almost the same for practical purposes.</p>
  
  <p>The primary SQL Server DBA is adamant that every single database (most of which are built by 3rd-party apps) must be rebuilt with the new collation before he will migrate them.</p>
  
  <p>I know that ever since SQL Server 2000 it's been possible to set individual databases to have a different collation than the default. <strong>But what are the real consequences of running with mixed collations?</strong> <a href="http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa214897%28v=sql.80%29.aspx" rel="noreferrer">One article from Microsoft</a> suggests complications with the shared tempdb, for example (but can it easily be avoided?).</p>
  
  <p>And, perhaps more importantly, <strong>what might we do to avoid these problems if we do need to support multiple collations on the new servers?</strong> </p>