RE: a couple of questions

Hi Greg (and all),

32-bit applications will run under 64-bit OS (Solaris 7-9 and on) with no problems. In fact a lot of the unix commands are 32-bit and probably will remain so. The main reason to go beyond 32-bit is if you need an address space for a single process to be above 4 GB. Not likely for things like lpr.

In any case, if you don't need larger address spaces, 32-bit binaries will run a little bit faster, like maybe 5% or so, because pointers are smaller and so use less space in the instruction cache, data cache and memory pages (and also SGA) meaning less work needs to be done moving memory around.

Both 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Oracle are certified on Solaris and seem to work fine.

Dave Miller
Sun Microsystems, Inc.
#include <std.disclaimer>

>X-Unix-From: Greg.Loughmiller_at_cingular.com Thu Jul 18 06:47:05 2002
>Date: Thu, 18 Jul 2002 04:13:19 -0800
>To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L <ORACLE-L_at_fatcity.com>
>X-Comment: Oracle RDBMS Community Forum
>X-Sender: "Loughmiller, Greg" <Greg.Loughmiller_at_cingular.com>
>From: "Loughmiller, Greg" <Greg.Loughmiller_at_cingular.com>
>Subject: RE: a couple of questions
>X-ListServer: v1.0g, build 71; ListGuru (c) 1996-2001 Bruce A. Bergman
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>
>As an additional side note to the 64 bit phase of this thread...
>
>Solaris 9 is 64 bit by default. So the statement made by an individual (a
>field engineer) if anyone has plans on moving to a Solaris 9 environment,
>one will need to use the 64 bit Oracle version. I'm not totally convinced
>of that though because other vendor code(WebLogic, BEA, Tuxedo,etc) may not
>be 64 bit, nor certified on Solaris 9...
>
>
>
>My 2 cents worth.....
>
>Greg
>
>-----Original Message-----
>Sent: Wednesday, July 17, 2002 4:20 PM
>To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L
>
>
>Richard - I can't answer how we got 32 bit Oracle on Solaris by default.
>Currently my sys admin is handling installs. I think he had only one version
>and its' bitness wasn't labeled.
> One day someone on this list asked how to tell whether the version
>installed was 32 or 64 bit. Several other people provided methods. Slow day,
>so I tried them. Turned out we were using 32-bit. We have been on Compaq
>Tru64 for many years and this isn't an issue there (only 64 bit), so we
>probably just hadn't particularly thought the issue through. I just figured
>that if one person ran into that, others might also.
> I also assumed that if there is a 32 bit and 64 bit versions, the obvious
>choice would be to go for 64 bit. That has always been the answer for other
>applications and platforms I've dealt with, once the better version is
>available there is no looking back. But then this morning Brian McGraw said
>that he always used the 32 bit version and provided good reasons. So part of
>me is asking "how long has 64 bit Solaris been available? (a few years for
>sure)", and "do Solaris types just love 32 bit or what ??".
>
>Dennis Williams
>DBA
>Lifetouch, Inc.
>dwilliams_at_lifetouch.com
>
>
>-----Original Message-----
>Sent: Wednesday, July 17, 2002 2:24 PM
>To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L
>
>
>How do u get 32 bit by default? The 32bit and 64bit Oracle came as
>separate CDs. Am I missing something?
>
>Richard
>
>-----Original Message-----
>Sent: Wednesday, July 17, 2002 1:33 PM
>To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L
>
>
>Rachel - We are using 64-bit Oracle on 64-bit Solaris. No problems so far,
>but not much mileage on either. The one thing that came up is that you must
>be careful because you seem to get 32-bit Oracle by default. Someone on this
>list suggested running "file oracle".
>
>Oracle does have user-defined data types if that helps.
>
>Dennis Williams
>DBA
>Lifetouch, Inc.
>dwilliams_at_lifetouch.com
>
>
>-----Original Message-----
>Sent: Wednesday, July 17, 2002 12:09 PM
>To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L
>
>
>Okay, I'm working on what feels like 30 new projects all at once and I
>WILL be RTFM'ing as soon as I can get more than 5 minutes out of
>meetings but....
>
>
>first: has anyone heard of any problems with 64-bit Oracle on a
>Solaris 64-bit OS?
>
>second (and this one confuses me a bit)... I've been asked if Oracle9i
>supports a "variant" datatype -- they are not familiar with oracle but
>are familiar with SQL Server and say that there is a datatype called
>"variant" there where you can basically overload the column with
>whatever datatype you want (string, number, date) and the database
>knows what type of data it is storing within the column. They referred
>me to C++ and Java, neither of which I know.
>
>Can anyone point in the right direction to start researching this?
>
>Thanks!
>
>Rachel
>
>
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