If RH Server's database goes down, does RH Server go down also?

Hi experts. I've a couple RH Server questions:

1. Supposing RH Server's database fails, or at least it's connection to the database fails. What would be the consequences. That is, would RH Server crash and not serve up anything. Or, would it simply be that reports are no longer accessible, etc.
2. Has anyone used RH Server (installed on a Win 7 system) connected to a SQL Server Express instance (installed on another Win 7 system to spread CPU load).

My IT Manager is very leery of the free database option (for performance/reliability reasons), but there's no way we're going to spend almost 20K$ on SQL Server or Oracle DB. So, I'd like to allay his concerns about the SQL Service Express option.

Thanks in advance.

-Kurt