64-bit SQL Server Improves Application Performance

SQL Server 2000 (64-bit) takes advantage of the large memory support of the 64-bit versions of Windows Server 2003 and Intel’s 64-bit Itanium 2 processor to improve performance for memory-intensive database applications. With this release, Microsoft hopes to gain a foothold in the large database market and to dispel the still common notion that SQL Server is outgunned by Unix-based solutions at the high end. Applications built for the 32-bit version of SQL Server should run without change against databases on 64-bit SQL Servers, but not all SQL Server tools are compatible with the 64-bit version, so 64-bit SQL Server instances will need to be managed remotely from 32-bit computers.

Why 64-Bit SQL Server Is Important

The 64-bit version of SQL Server derives from and shares a common code base with the currently shipping 32-bit version of SQL Server 2000. SQL Server 2000 is built around a core database engine for storing, managing, and retrieving data, and a separate online analytic processing (OLAP) engine for analyzing large historical databases (data warehouses) and data mining. Complementing the core engines is a set of tools to administer, manage, and query databases, and data access libraries that enable applications to communicate with the database and OLAP engines. SQL Server 2000 also includes utilities for replicating and synchronizing copies of the same data on multiple sites or systems.