We want to use a mix of Foundation and Server to build our Intranet. I say a mix because we have CALs for Server for one of our departments but not for most of the other departments. So what we were thinking of doing was installing a Standard Server Site Collection on one server for the licensed department and a separate Foundation server for the other departments. Can anyone tell me if this is a good or bad idea or somewhere in between? What issues would you forsee with this setup? Would each instance be able to search the content on the other server or would we run into issues with foundation trying to search the server standard database?

I think your biggest issue will be the ability (or rather, lack of ability) to collaborate with users between departments. With content in different farms, there are two potential places content may exist. It could work if you have very strict lines between departments (that is licensed vs unlicensed users) but this is usually not the case and not in the spirit of the purpose of SharePoint! How do you intend to manage users in your Standard farm granting access to unlicensed users? To your question about search, the Standard farm will be able to crawl the Foundation farm and its users will be able to search for content in the foundation farm, but not vice versa. You might be able to set something up with Search Server Express but I suspect crawling a SharePoint Server farm is not allowed under the licensing terms (that is, I don't know for sure, you would need to find out). And just to be clear, while SharePoint Foundation does not require special licensing, the users are still required to have Windows CALs (device or user) to use SharePoint Foundation. Jason Warren Infrastructure Architect Habanero Consulting Group habaneroconsulting.com/blog

I think your biggest issue will be the ability (or rather, lack of ability) to collaborate with users between departments. With content in different farms, there are two potential places content may exist. It could work if you have very strict lines between departments (that is licensed vs unlicensed users) but this is usually not the case and not in the spirit of the purpose of SharePoint! How do you intend to manage users in your Standard farm granting access to unlicensed users? To your question about search, the Standard farm will be able to crawl the Foundation farm and its users will be able to search for content in the foundation farm, but not vice versa. You might be able to set something up with Search Server Express but I suspect crawling a SharePoint Server farm is not allowed under the licensing terms (that is, I don't know for sure, you would need to find out). And just to be clear, while SharePoint Foundation does not require special licensing, the users are still required to have Windows CALs (device or user) to use SharePoint Foundation. Jason Warren Infrastructure Architect Habanero Consulting Group habaneroconsulting.com/blog