64 Bit Compatibility

Jeff wrote:
 > *I* know what "64 bit compatibility" means, but I have been
programming for
 > 20 years.. how many members of the press corps are going to know what
that
 > means? and if someone doesn't know what it means, how likely are they to
 > look it up or ask someone that knows about these things?

 > as a test, I just asked a Cisco router guy if he knew what "64 bit
 > compatibility" means.. and the first question he asked was "in what
 > context"? I then explained that it was the context of "RDBMS
software", and
 > he was *still* not sure what I was talking about, and didn't see any
 > benefit.

Then let's ask ourselves: "What use is 64 bit compatibility?"

Answer:

"... 64 bit support means database processes can access more than 2GB of
physical memory, which is vital for supporting large enterprise
databases and data warehousing applications."

The problem with "only 32 bits" is that you can't make use of >2GB of
RAM on a system.  (Well, on a 4GB IA-32 box, you could have PostgreSQL
consume up to 2GB, and then see filesystem cacheing use the rest, but
you still only have direct access to 2GB at a time...)

This is the reason why Opteron, in particular, should be very exciting.
It breaks the 2GB barrier without having to resort to really expensive
"proprietary Unix" hardware.

Something resembling my "quoted" bit should be added, as it gives people
some idea as to what 64 bits "fixes."

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Christopher Browne
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