32-bit or 64-bit / Itanium or XEON

Weâ're currently evaluating an additional new Datawarehouse Production Server.
Actually weâ're using the Proliant DL760 8-CPU XEON 32-Bit, 8GB RAM, Windows
2003 Enterprise, SQL 2000 Enterprise.
Weâ've a lot of parallel long-running procedures & DTS packages. The server
is 24hx7d in use. Weâ've a lot of tables with more than five million records.
Now weâ've some open issues:
- Shall we use 32-bit or 64-bit?
- And if 64-bit, XEON or ITANIUM Processor Technology?
- And if 64-bit, is the SQL Server 2000 64 bit a good decision or shall we
wait until SQL 2005 64-bit will be released?
Many thanks in advance for any information.
DominicWith large tables, you will probably benefit from the additional memory
capabilities of 64 -bit, but that really depends on the kinds of work your
uers are doing... IF they mainly insert, update, delete, select small
subsets of rows in tables with appropriate indexes, you may NOT need the
extra memory...
If you have money, buy the best you need, but to determine what you need you
must consider the # of users and the kind of queries.
--
Wayne Snyder, MCDBA, SQL Server MVP
Mariner, Charlotte, NC
www.mariner-usa.com
(Please respond only to the newsgroups.)
I support the Professional Association of SQL Server (PASS) and it's
community of SQL Server professionals.
www.sqlpass.org
"Dominic" <Dominic@.discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:70CC5923-AC7D-48D9-9A4C-EF52662E3099@.microsoft.com...
> We're currently evaluating an additional new Datawarehouse Production
> Server.
> Actually we're using the Proliant DL760 8-CPU XEON 32-Bit, 8GB RAM,
> Windows
> 2003 Enterprise, SQL 2000 Enterprise.
> We've a lot of parallel long-running procedures & DTS packages. The server
> is 24hx7d in use. We've a lot of tables with more than five million
> records.
> Now we've some open issues:
> - Shall we use 32-bit or 64-bit?
> - And if 64-bit, XEON or ITANIUM Processor Technology?
> - And if 64-bit, is the SQL Server 2000 64 bit a good decision or shall we
> wait until SQL 2005 64-bit will be released?
> Many thanks in advance for any information.
> Dominic|||Dominic,
You didn't mention the speed of your current servers processors but here's
few things to consider.
In SQL 2000 64bit there is no DTS, EM, Profiler, or QA. DTS would need a
separate home.
I believe under SQL 2000 64 bit is only supported under the Itanium
processor. It will run on the other but not supported.
Under the 64 bit Itanium processor other interesting benefits are faster IO
throughput (at least on high bandwidth SANs) and faster memory access (by
not using AWE)
HP will bring out their dual core processors in early 2006. Getting a
system that can upgrade to it allows for a doubling of processors without
doubling the SQL licenses.
SQL 64bit is the way you will want to go in the future but if you need DTS
then you will most likely need to wait.
"Dominic" <Dominic@.discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:70CC5923-AC7D-48D9-9A4C-EF52662E3099@.microsoft.com...
> We're currently evaluating an additional new Datawarehouse Production
> Server.
> Actually we're using the Proliant DL760 8-CPU XEON 32-Bit, 8GB RAM,
> Windows
> 2003 Enterprise, SQL 2000 Enterprise.
> We've a lot of parallel long-running procedures & DTS packages. The server
> is 24hx7d in use. We've a lot of tables with more than five million
> records.
> Now we've some open issues:
> - Shall we use 32-bit or 64-bit?
> - And if 64-bit, XEON or ITANIUM Processor Technology?
> - And if 64-bit, is the SQL Server 2000 64 bit a good decision or shall we
> wait until SQL 2005 64-bit will be released?
> Many thanks in advance for any information.
> Dominic|||Five million records isn't large by today's standards, especially for a
warehouse server. My site uses 8-way Xeon servers, with transactional tables
as large as 20M records and warehouse tables of 100M records.
You're not likely to see performance benefits on Itanium unless your queries
are memory intensive and you load up the server with considerably more than
the 8 GB on your current servers. The cost of an 8-way Itanium with 32GB ram
is quite pricey...and don't forget Itanium's IA-64 means a lot less choice in
the apps you can put on that server.
In my opinion, Intel's adoption of EM64T means IA-64 is a dead end. If I
had a transactional system that can't be easily partitioned and absolutely
needs the added performance I might consider Itanium, but otherwise I'd stick
with the Xeons.