64-bit advantages?

[Former Member]

Are there any advantages of doing a 64-bit deployment of SQL Anyhwere for Windows rather than a 32-bit deployment on a 64-bit Windows OS like Windows 7 64-bit or Windows Server 2008 64-bit? Since the deployment wizard only support 32-bit Windows Installer Packages, doing a 64-bit deployment would be much more difficult.

[VolkerBarth]

Note that starting with v12, the Deployment Wizard does support 64-bit, too.

Cf. the docs.

[MCMartin · Accepted solution]

You can use more memory for the database cache, which will lead to performance improvements. This is advantageous even if your client is still only a 32 Bit application. Anyway this advantage is only relevant, if your databases are larger (or will grow) than the max database cache size for 32 Bit (which is limited nativ to 1.8 GB (AWE could use more, but has other limitations, Glenn has given a good explanation here)).

So for the server OS my recommendation would be yes, for the client installation it depends on the used database sizes.

[reimer_pods · Accepted solution]

I presume that "client installation" deals with DBENG#.exe aka Personal Server.

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

@Reimer - no client would be a "client-server" client, not a Personal Server. Back in the old days there was an actual dbclient.exe, today the odbc driver, ado provider, etc. all contain the client gear to connect directly. A client app could be on the same physical machine as the server or a different physical machine. The Personal Server/dbengX.exe will benefit from the 64-bit memory space in the same way that the Network Server/dbsrvX.exe will. A 32-bit could still connect to a 64-bit Personal Server on the same machine.

[VolkerBarth · Accepted solution]

@Martin: I would be interested how many clients (i.e. applications) would take advantage of being 64 bit - not the typical ones, methinks... Apps, that import huge blobs into databases?