The 64-bit Question

  • All the best...is it a big (round numbered) celebration?

    10 years for us this year...

  • Happy Anniversary!!! One of the best days in life, better than a birthday

  • Happy Anniversary, Steve & Mrs.!  My wife and I are celebrating our second in less than two weeks!

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    [font="Arial"]Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves or we know where we can find information upon it. --Samuel Johnson[/font]

  • Happy anniversary!  Many happy returns!

    Not so long ago, it seemed as if everyone was wringing their hands about 16 bits vs. 32 bits.  (Fortunately I'm not old enough to remember the 8 bit world!)  Over the horizon 128 bits are lurking....  In the long run, you'll have no choice.

    Long INTC, short AMD.

     

  • Fortunately I'm not old enough to remember the 8 bit world!

    "Fortunately"??  I remember the 8-bit world as well but that is showing my age

    The 32- vs 64-bit argument is something that sticks in my neck a bit as I want to upgrade to 64-bit SQL Server but the idea has been knocked on the head by the boss of the network area because he says: (quote) "...the technology is untried and untested...." and (more accurately) "...nobody in the area knows anything about it and we don't want to screw up connectivity by putting it in..."

    This has the be the most lame-arse excuse for sticking with old technology

    A SQL Server DBA mate (with lots more experience than I possess) described 32- vs 64-bit as Win-98 vs XP.

    I thought all servers were 64-bit anyway now?  That was one comment I'd heard about the place.  I've got 4 brand-new boxes sitting out the back waiting for Network to put an O/S on them (because nobody else is allowed to touch them ) and they can't do the work for weeks yet.  I would have thought that being dual-proc IBM 3650's that they would be 64-bit - I can't see anything to contradict this on the IBM site.

    /edit/

    DAMMIT - forgot the most important thing!

    HAPPY ANNIVERSARY MR & MRS JONES!!  (is this what you call "Keeping up with the Jones' "?

    Do you get funny looks when you book into a motel and the clerk goes: "Oh that's original - you could just use 'Smith' like everyone else...."

     

    A lack of planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on mine.

  • Happy anniversary Mr and Mrs Steve

  • Happy Aniversary.  In all the celebrating, you missed the research done on SQL Server 2005 performance.

    If your apps live happily inside what 32 bit can do, you won't see much.

    However, if you are in anyway limited by 32 bit - the difference is huge.   Being able to have a 16GB cache and not having to mess with "AWE" - a hack at best - changes everything.   From an IO point of view, a 64 bit bus is also a major improvement.

    Going with an Opteron instead of a traditional front bus chip was amazing: literally twice the work, in half the time, vs a similarly configured Intel.

    The perfomance benefits are huge, but if you may not  work your server hard enough to notice, even if the idle time rises and the disk queues fall.

    Analysis services is a whole other question.   If big memory slows it down, well, shades of Sybase 4.2: time to get Analysis Services rewritten?    For the 2005 server, the downside is the OS install and issues of compatability.  Once running, it's a monster.

    Roger L Reid

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