Post reply

Consolidate on 64bit?

  • August 17, 2009 at 2:39 pm

    #140969

    I have several SQL Server 2000 machines and a SQL Server 2005 vm. I would like to consolidate these, long-term, on one SQL Server 2005 64 bit cluster. I have about 15 databases, 10 in-house developed, 5 third-party provided.

    The 2000 to 2005 upgrade is not a major issue for me, I can test my internal apps or check with my vendors.

    I am more concerned about the 64bit upgrade. Should I be? What should I be looking out for? What are the pitfalls? Can I still develop on 32bit hardware? Is it common for vendor provided databases to only support 32 bit?

    Thanks for any comments.

  • August 17, 2009 at 3:54 pm

    #1040559

    The biggest issue that I've seen with 64-bit hardware isn't with the database... that will work just fine. My problem has been with SSIS not having access to drivers to read/write Excel files - they're all 32-bit drivers.

    Wayne
    Microsoft Certified Master: SQL Server 2008
    Author - SQL Server T-SQL Recipes

    If you can't explain to another person how the code that you're copying from the internet works, then DON'T USE IT on a production system! After all, you will be the one supporting it!
    Links:
    For better assistance in answering your questions
    Performance Problems
    Common date/time routines
    Understanding and Using APPLY Part 1 & Part 2

  • August 17, 2009 at 10:26 pm

    #1040628

    Wayne is right on track with the SSIS problem with anything using MS-Jet drivers.

    However, if you use any custom extended stored procedures you may have a problem.

    CEWII

  • August 18, 2009 at 12:52 pm

    #1041104

    we had an issue where we couldn't read from MS Access on a x64 server. we installed office 2003 on the server and it worked fine after that

  • August 18, 2009 at 2:08 pm

    #1041147

    Thanks all. We do use SSIS so the driver issues may be a problem. I imagine we may also have issues with 3rd party vendor support. My takeaway, If you have one monster 64bit compatible db then 64bit is good. If you want to consolidate a variety of databases maybe best to stick to 32.

  • August 18, 2009 at 8:43 pm

    #1041251

    Using SSIS isn't the problem, using some drivers can be a problem with 64-bit, but they can be overcome by forcing packages to run as 32-bit on a 64-bit server.. I would still go 64..

    CEWII

  • August 19, 2009 at 9:22 am

    #1041637

    Has anyone seen any issues with vendors saying we don't support 64 bit or is that not an issue?

  • August 19, 2009 at 9:34 am

    #1041657

    we're in the process of moving a sql 2000 server to sql 2005 x64 and had to find new third party drivers because some of the drivers on the old server date back 10 years or more.

    what we did was set up a separate SQL server on Windows 2003 x64 and SQL 2005 x64 to run only third party drivers. any job that requires copying data from Oracle or Sybase runs on this server and copies the data to another SQL Server.

    we run Oracle x64 and x86 drivers on it and 2 different versions of Sybase drivers and will add MySQL soon. if there is a problem it doesn't cause an outage on a real production server

Viewing 8 posts - 1 through 7 (of 7 total)

You must be logged in to reply to this topic. Login to reply