32-bit SQL and 64-bit OS

I haven't tried mixing them to that extent.

Have you thought about running these in separate VMs or something like that?

VM is not supported by the vendor. The app is critical, we don't want to try something the vendor don't like 🙂

We went from a 32bit/32bit SQL 2000 environment last year to initially, a 32bit SQL /64 bit OS enviornment. It was not ideal. The server was constantly at 100% CPU and we were just getting poor performance all around. I did a little bit of research online and found a few articles that said SQL would not take advantage of available memory properly if the enviornment was 32/64. We worked with HP to try and see if we could fix the server and I messed around with sp_configure a lot trying to get the performance to come up but nothing worked.

In the end we ended up reimaging the server and installing 64 bit SQL with the 64 bit OS. After that, it was purring like a kitten.

So, I'm not sure if our problem really was the 32/64 or if the server was just a jacked install but putting it 64/64 did seem to help a lot.

I found this: http://www.sqlnewsgroups.net/sqlserver/t18795-32bit-sql-64bit-windows.aspx

If Linchi has done it, you should be OK.

Your plan should work, but I don't know that many people that have done it. Can I ask why not 64 bit SQL? The file formats are the same.

I have no idea why they didn't support 64-bit SQL 2005 when they first required SQL 2005. The pain is the upgrades must be done one by one so we must do 5 long upgrades during the weekend. It is not just like we can do just 1 last upgrade to bring us to current.

Doing the upgrades one by one is fine. I would ask about 64bit and push a bit to get them to agree or give you concrete reasons. There were some things, like JET drivers, etc., but not many. If you can go all 64, I would.

I agree with Steve.

You can do the upgrades one by one (do you remember the line 'You can live on it' in Crocodile Dundee?), but I would ask the vendor to give reasons why you cannot go direct to 64-bit SQL Server on your 64-bit OS. They should give real facts and figures, not just a general 'we recommend...' as a general recommendation probably means they simply don't know.

thank guys for the input.

I so far hit level 1 tech support. They just said that the version was tested only with 32-bit when released so they wanted us to use 32-bit for that version.

I think I might ask for a 64-bit test from then. The file formats, and many things are the same. Unless they have some 32 bit driver, it ought to work.