Question 32 bit and 64 bit progress 9.1d version doubt

[Mike]

We have server where we installed progress 9.1d version 32bit and 64 bit on same server: -


1:- 32 bit :-/progress9/dlc/bin and
2:- 64bit :- /progress9_64/dlc/bin

So my question is which is better version 64 bit or 32 bit and what is the difference between. And in aspects of shared memory which one is better?

And can we use and install both version of different bits in same server?

Thanks and Regards
Mike

 

[TomBascom]

"Better" is in the eye of the beholder but most people are going to view 64 bits as being better.

The most significant difference is that a 64 bit executable can address A LOT more memory. Four billion times as much. A 32 bit process is limited to 4GB of addressable RAM (and realistically less than 2GB is typically available to "user space" because the OS usually reserves half of the address space for itself).

The biggest difference to a Progress db is that 64 bits permits more than 2GB of RAM to be allocated to -B and this also usually goes hand in hand with being able to use a larger shared memory segment size. This is usually "good for performance" but you should be careful not to overdo it. Even if you _can_ it is unwise to allocate more than about half of your RAM to -B.

On ancient, obsolete, and unsupported releases like v9 there may be issues with 32 bit r-code vs 64 bit r-code. It has been a long time since I worried about that so I don't really recall how much of a problem that might really be.

As for having both installed and using both. Yes, you can do that. But why would you? I might do it for a short time while migrating from to the other but I would move away from 32 bits and go to 64 bits as quickly as is feasible and then delete the 32 bit install.

 

[dimitri.p]

If you have tools for both 32 and 64 bit ....it's six of one or half a dozen of the other.
If all your code runs on the 64 bit version, and you don't need to support any 32 bit machines there is no real reason to not use the 64bit version.
The crunch is going to be when you move from 9.1D to current.
Will be easier if you already have verified your application doesn't have any 32to64 bit transition issues.
So test, test, test.