SQL Server 2000 Consolidation: a business case

the industry-standard x86 instruction set, allowing 32-bit applications to run natively on x64
processors such as the AMD Opteron™ and the Intel
Xeon™ 64-bit processors. At the same time, new
64-bit applications are executed in 64-bit mode.
The x64 version of Windows Server 2003 has been recently released, so this new technology could
be considered for consolidation also. Depending on the size of the workload, the greater scalability
of the HP Integrity servers may provide a better solution. For more information on Windows x64
systems, visit:
www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2003/64bit/x64/default.mspx.
Key benefits of 64-bit processing
64-bit processing is not just about performance, it’s about capabilities. While 64-bit technology does
not always guarantee a performance improvement over a 32-bit system—for instance, in a single-
threaded query on a server that’s not busy sorting/hashing/hash joining/comparing strings and that
has adequate memory, you might get better or comparable results with a 32-bit processor—it can
significantly increase capability for the appropriate type of applications. Applications that can
leverage the 64-bit processor’s wider bus into the underlying memory hardware and use its superior
floating-point precision to improve high-volume data passes through the processor’s various “double-
wide” registers can improve performance significantly. In real terms, 64-bit processing is best suited
for large (terabyte-sized) databases, faster transaction times, and more robust compute-intensive
transactions.
Ten benefits of 64-bit Itanium 2–based systems are:
• It has more transaction processing power.
– Better thread parallelism through the utilization of Explicit Parallel Instruction Computing (EPIC)
– Faster I/O through improved bus architecture
– Larger memory footprint through native memory access (avoids AWE)
• It offers better hardware utilization.
– SQL Server 2000 database engine is compiled for use with the 64-bit environment and can
execute faster with more capacity.
– Results in higher return on hardware investment
• It leverages the robustness of the Windows Server 2003 64-bit operating system.
– Strong foundation for the enterprise database systems
• It allows customers to mitigate application inefficiencies. The 64-bit platform provides a reliable
insurance policy against third-party enterprise applications that may not interact with the database
in an efficient manner. Benefits include:
– Larger memory extensions
– Lower context switching
– Better and faster parallelism
– Better and faster I/O
• Scale-up is the best way to lower TCO.
– More cost-effective
– Lower cost of operations and management
– Lower license cost due to consolidation onto fewer machines
– Support for effective use of multi-instance Microsoft SQL Server 2000, 64-bit
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