32bit TM1 on 64bit

[BryanM]

Plenty of posts on this topic but I was after some definitive answers from our support partner.

Asking about what version of OS would give us access to the 3gb switch or what version of 64bit (standard or enterprise) we would need to enable 4gb. I thought I knew the answer after reading previous topics, but I thought I'd get it confirmed. I got the following answer -

As your TM1 is a 32 bit version is will not work/utilise the 64-BIt 4GB of RAM on the operating system.

You would need the 64 Bit version of TM1 to use on a 64-Bit operating system.

I think you should be able to use 4GB of RAM on your 2003 standard edition if you enabled the PAE on your machine?

Any comments? Especially on the final suggestion as I haven't seen that mentioned before.

[Paul Segal]

As your TM1 is a 32 bit version is will not work/utilise the 64-BIt 4GB of RAM on the operating system.

Correct.

You would need the 64 Bit version of TM1 to use on a 64-Bit operating system.

Also correct. It will depend on your licencing/maintenance agreement whether you can swap out the 32 bit with the 64 bit version

I think you should be able to use 4GB of RAM on your 2003 standard edition if you enabled the PAE on your machine?

I can't pretend to be an expert on this, but according to this http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library ... 85%29.aspx then you might be able to get to 4GB on certain versions of 32 bit Windows 2003, although I've never used it (with or without TM1) and I don't know of anyone who has.

Best

[Mike Cowie]

As your TM1 is a 32 bit version is will not work/utilise the 64-BIt 4GB of RAM on the operating system.

You can absolutely install and run 32-bit TM1 on a 64-bit operating system, provided the 64-bit operating system allows 32-bit applications to run (I don't know if I've ever seen that switched off). My understanding is that this gives you 4GB RAM, though I have not personally tested that. I don't think the OS edition matters for this.

You would need the 64 Bit version of TM1 to use on a 64-Bit operating system.

As stated above, this is false. You certainly will get much more RAM available to TM1 with 64-bit TM1. If you have 32GB of RAM installed on the server, for instance, the most you can get 32-bit TM1 to see (before it runs out of RAM) is 4GB, whereas on a 32-bit OS the most you could get was 3GB. A 64-bit instance of TM1 on a 64-bit server can see as much of that 32GB of RAM as is available. The only true statement would be that you can't run 64-bit TM1 on a 32-bit OS.

I think you should be able to use 4GB of RAM on your 2003 standard edition if you enabled the PAE on your machine?

I believe this is also false - I don't think TM1 ever made any efforts to take advantage of PAE and, thus, you can't get to 4GB of RAM on a 32-bit version of TM1 and 32-bit version of Windows. With 64-bit builds of TM1, there wasn't any need to support PAE, really (the effort would not have been trivial).

Hope that helps. If this were baseball, your support partner would be out...

Regards,
Mike

[Paul Segal]

I stand corrected!

Regards

[BryanM]

Thanks for the comments. I'll see what response I get from our support!

[BryanM]

Helpdesk referred to a TM1 Consultant and the advice has changed.

Although it is possible, it appears as though there are some issues with running 32-bit on 64-bit hardware, such as ODBC driver compatibility and it is unsupported by IBM. You will generally get the advantage of the extra GB of RAM if using 32-bit TM1 on 64-bit hardware as 32/ 32 is limited to 3GB

Moving to a 64-bit server with only 4GB of RAM might not yield a performance increase as the OS takes twice the RAM due the 64-bit nature.

[tomok]

ODBC driver compatibility

What they mean is that if you are running the 32-bit verson of TM1 then it is only going to be able to take advantage of 32-bit ODBC drivers. Whether you have those 32-bit drivers available to you on your 64-bit server is open to debate. It all depends on what database server you are talking about and whether you can put the 32-bit client on your 64-bit box.

Moving to a 64-bit server with only 4GB of RAM might not yield a performance increase as the OS takes twice the RAM due the 64-bit nature.

What they are saying is that the 64-bit version of TM1 requires more memory to do the same thing as the 32-bit version. A model that requires 1GB on a 32-bit server will require approx 2GB on a 64-bit machine. The benefit of the 64-bit architecture is that the TM1 model can scale with whatever RAM you can fit on your 64-bit box whereas the 32-bit version of TM1 is NEVER going to be able to use more than somewhere between 3 and 4GB, regardless of how much RAM you can stuff in the box.

I usually never recommend a client use the 32-bit version of TM1, always 64-bit, because you don't want to limit your scalability just to save a few dollars. Somewhere down the line you'll wish you hadn't.

[Alan Kirk]

the 32-bit version of TM1 is NEVER going to be able to use more than somewhere between 3 and 4GB, regardless of how much RAM you can stuff in the box.

Not to wish to be pedantic, but a single server session of 32 bit TM1 is never... (etc).

Licencing and data design permitting, a larger memory capacity server can still be utilised by splitting the data over multiple server sessions within a single 32 bit box. That having been said...

I usually never recommend a client use the 32-bit version of TM1, always 64-bit, because you don't want to limit your scalability just to save a few dollars. Somewhere down the line you'll wish you hadn't.

That I'd agree with wholeheartedly. When a new installation is being done it's easier to get the purse strings loosened a bit further. Once an implementation is running, it's far harder to get extra cash for upgrades. ("Why do we need to spend the money? Things are working just fine!") And don't assume that the upgrade cost from 32 to 64 bit will be a trivial amount; it's not. Better to bite the bullet and go 64 bit from the start.