Migrating to a 64 version of sql

  • We are in the process of planning the move to 64bit hardware.  I would like to performance benefits of going 64 at a windows and sql server level standpoint.  We are considering three possible ways of implementing a 64 solution. 

    1. 64 bit 2003 windows with 32 bit sql server 2000.

    2. 64 bit 2003 windows with 64 bit sql server 2000.

    3. 64 bit 2003 windows with 64 bit sql server 2005 later when released.

    What type of chipset give the most for the money?  What are the gotcha’s with sql server that needs to be addressed or considered?  What some real world experiences and benefits of going 64 bit?

    I have a lot of question to answer to justify before I can get signoff to go 64 bit.  Any help is greatly appreciated.

     

  • What BRAND of CPU are you looking at getting?  IF INTEL 64 BIT O/S with 64 BIT INTEL and 32 BIT SQL will run poorly.  IF AMD 64 BIT then 32 BIT SQL will be ok....



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    AJ Ahrens


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  • AFAIK SQLServer 64 bit edition is running exclusively on Itanium II .

    So if you are planning to use some cheaper CPU (As I would like to), like Opteron or Xeon64 you have to wait the SQL 2005 edition.

    IMHO having a 64 bit OS and a 32 bit database on a server which is dedicated to SQLServer won't serve you a lot. You still won't be able to address easiely the the memory above 4 GB.

    But if within your server you don't have more then 4 GB RAM then anyhow you wouldn't need the 64 bit version



    Bye
    Gabor

  • I'm curious, what are your reasons for moving?

    Also, I believe Gabor is correct, the 64 bit SQL Server is only for Intel products. If you really want the move, you could move to the AMD 64-bit chips, then wait for SQL Server 2005 to move that to 64 bit.

    http://www.microsoft.com/sql/64bit/productinfo/sysreq.mspx

  • Actually the new Intel 64-bit Zeon chips (nearly equivalent to AMD) will run SQL 2000 with SP4. You get a slight increase in performance for not taking an AWE hit when using 4 GB of memory (supposed to address 4 GB natively when running in 32-bit mode). Otherwise posting are correct SQL 2005 support both AMD and Intel x86 64-bit chip as well as Itanium. SQL 2000 64-bit only runs on Itanium and MS has no plans to migrated SQL 2000 to x86 64-bit chips (Opteron and Zeon). Keep in mind the Itanium chip is worlds different in performance (more than twice the performance) as well as cost to both AMD and Zeon x86 64-bit chips. Itanium is more of a RISC based arch. I've done some testing comparing Itanium (Madison and Hondo chipsets) against 32-bit Zeon chips. I lot of performance gain depends on your particular SQL code, one of the applications I tested against was very heavy OLTP and processor bound, so 64-bit did not buy us much. For Analytics, you gain a big performance boost with the additional addressable memory. Keep this in mind as you test. We found a 32-bit Zeon vs 64-bit Itanium nearly equivalent because of application code was heavy OLTP and processor bound. The Itanium chip speeds are 1.2 and 1.5 GHZ, but they try and make up for it with huge on board cache 5 or 9 MB per core. I believe some of MS white papers on 64-bit talk about big gains for Analystics and not so much for OLTP.

     

  • I agree with cmille.

    Actually the performance gain of the 64 bit processor is for memory intensive applications (over 4 GB). The pure processor speed is not enormously higher then the 32 bit procs.

    By this time I don't want to buy an Itanium based computer because I will need something more performent for the coming 3-5 years to run our big SAP IS-U system (actually 500 GB in 2 years 2-3 TB). So I want to invest only in a 64 bit HW which will support this charge increase.



    Bye
    Gabor

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