Oracle 9i for x86-32 vs x86-64

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Vladimir Mosgalin - 30 Jun 2005 12:39 GMT

Hi All!

I need to upgrade an oracle server. For a new server, I picked dual Xeon Intel
board and 2G of memory (a lot of people would say "too low", but the
person who manages db says that it would be enough for 2-3 years.

Now the question is - board and CPUs support EM64T, should I pick up
x86-64 version of Oracle? Maxumim amount of supported memory is really
out of question, it's all about performance. I can't find any benchmarks
or comparsions of 32-bit and 64-bit versions on the same hardware, so I
can't even guess the benefit of using 64 bits here. 10% faster math
operations? 5% more transactions per second? 1% lower performance in our
tasks? I don't know.

The problem is, however, that we don't have x86-64 version of RHEL, and
will probably have to order a fresh RHEL4 for that. And then maybe I
will experience a lot of wonderful problems with it. It's not very hard,
but I don't want to spend time, money and nerves if it won't pay back
later at all.

The best thing would be some detailed benchmark, but if there isn't,
something general like transactions increase will do.

NB: I don't really know a lot about Oracle, I'm a sysadmin who will
install and manage the system, and I'll just forward the info to our
developers, and they will decide whether they really need it.

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Vladimir

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hpuxrac - 30 Jun 2005 13:16 GMT

Good question Vladimir. On regular unix platforms like sun aka solaris
and hpux (our shop) there's no question about it you want to go with
the 64 bit versions.

I will defer to people who actually operate and run on linux for your
question.

It doesn't sound like you are worried so much about relative
performance but more like stability and co-existence between rhel and
the oracle environment.

Last thing to consider is whether you want to go with 9i or consider
10g. Sounds like a given at this point you are going the 9i way but
oracle is releasing ( today I guess ) the 10g release 2 on linux.

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Vladimir.MV@gmail.com - 30 Jun 2005 15:19 GMT

> It doesn't sound like you are worried so much about relative performance
> but more like stability and co-existence between rhel and the oracle
> environment.

Yes, it's because I only have toyed with x86-64, never tried a
production system on it. All our servers are 32-bit. It's a matter of a
different kind - if devepers will say that 64 bit is better for them,
I'll do it. I don't really mind, I'll have to use linux on x86-64 in
the future anyway.

> Last thing to consider is whether you want to go with 9i or consider
> 10g. Sounds like a given at this point you are going the 9i way but
> oracle is releasing ( today I guess ) the 10g release 2 on linux.

Sure, it's just that main developer always said that he won't even dare
to try 10g before rel 2 since we need complete reliability for a
billing system, and now that it is out, he says that he needs a month
or so to investigate new features ;)

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Vladimir

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