Websites are getting bigger and complicated by the day. Video, images, custom fonts are all great for showcasing your product/service. But the price to pay in terms of reduced page load times and ultimately, decreased sales, can lead to some difficult decisions about what to cut.
Course Of The Month
2 days, 17 hours left to enrollBecome a Premium Member and unlock a new, free course in leading technologies each month.
Solved
IIS - 32bit vs 64bit and load balancing
Posted on 2011-03-07
Hello,
Looking for opinions on 32bit vs 64bit IIS. Our main internal application is .net/sql with 32bit iis front end, about 1000 users. This is for internal employees.
Do most people with larger IIS implementations then us stay with 32 bit iis and just implement software or hardware load balancers? Or do they migrate to 64 bit IIS then do the web farms or load balancers?
I'm leaning more towards staying 32bit and a hardware load balancer like F5's because of less headache with tool compatibility etc, not to mention the QA involved with going to 64bit. I'd prefer the hardware load balancing just because it seems to have more control and options but I might be wrong on that.
Just want to make to sure we are moving in the right direction, and get some opinions from people that might have already gone through this.
Thanks a lot
Looking for opinions on 32bit vs 64bit IIS. Our main internal application is .net/sql with 32bit iis front end, about 1000 users. This is for internal employees.
Do most people with larger IIS implementations then us stay with 32 bit iis and just implement software or hardware load balancers? Or do they migrate to 64 bit IIS then do the web farms or load balancers?
I'm leaning more towards staying 32bit and a hardware load balancer like F5's because of less headache with tool compatibility etc, not to mention the QA involved with going to 64bit. I'd prefer the hardware load balancing just because it seems to have more control and options but I might be wrong on that.
Just want to make to sure we are moving in the right direction, and get some opinions from people that might have already gone through this.
Thanks a lot
[X]
Welcome to Experts Exchange
Add your voice to the tech community where 5M+ people just like you are talking about what matters.
- Help others & share knowledge
- Earn cash & points
- Learn & ask questions
-
3
-
2
5 Comments
Hi,
The real reason for a 64Bit Host is more addressable memory. If you are noticing that you are hitting memory limits, then upgrade the Bitness.
For example, running 32bit W2K3 Enterprise Edition with 8GB of RAM, there is still a hard limit on what an individual workprocess can consume. In Windows, this limit is roughly 2GB of RAM per running process, no matter how much physical RAM is installed. There are boot switches like /3GB that flip the ration for 3 / 1 and /PAE for physical adress extentions but there is still a virtual limit. As well, IIS is not PAE aware such as SQL.
You Workerprocess with be limited to 2GB each. But you could have a 32GB server with 16 workprocesses consuming 2GB each.
Hope it helps,
Hades666
The real reason for a 64Bit Host is more addressable memory. If you are noticing that you are hitting memory limits, then upgrade the Bitness.
For example, running 32bit W2K3 Enterprise Edition with 8GB of RAM, there is still a hard limit on what an individual workprocess can consume. In Windows, this limit is roughly 2GB of RAM per running process, no matter how much physical RAM is installed. There are boot switches like /3GB that flip the ration for 3 / 1 and /PAE for physical adress extentions but there is still a virtual limit. As well, IIS is not PAE aware such as SQL.
You Workerprocess with be limited to 2GB each. But you could have a 32GB server with 16 workprocesses consuming 2GB each.
Hope it helps,
Hades666
As my opinion, upgrade to 64Bit and run in 32Bit mode. It is the default for 2008 (R2) server.
Cheers,
Hades666
Cheers,
Hades666
Hello,
Thanks, I'm sorry I left this info out: That is why we are investigating this, currently the w3 process gets up to 2gb by the end of the day so there is not much room currently, and sometimes unexpected recycles dureing the day. Currently the site is under one app pool.
It's getting clearer :)
So with 64bit OS and IIS running in 32, we would just segment some of the heavier use IIS areas into virtual directories or web sites and assign to different app pools?
Is full 64bit IIS stiill limited to 2gb's or can it grab as much as it needs?
Thanks again
Thanks, I'm sorry I left this info out: That is why we are investigating this, currently the w3 process gets up to 2gb by the end of the day so there is not much room currently, and sometimes unexpected recycles dureing the day. Currently the site is under one app pool.
It's getting clearer :)
So with 64bit OS and IIS running in 32, we would just segment some of the heavier use IIS areas into virtual directories or web sites and assign to different app pools?
Is full 64bit IIS stiill limited to 2gb's or can it grab as much as it needs?
Thanks again
IIS on 64Bit, runs in 64 mode. The change is within the application pool to run in 32Bit mode.
Next, 64Bit running is 64Bit appPool is limitless to an extent. The limit is 8TB.... not 2GB. It has a large base for addresses.
That is all.
I would suggest 64Bit and just test your applications. I would say about 90% of all my migrations from 32 -> 64 and IIS6 -> IIS7 have gone through with vary limited issuese that were addressed within a couple of hours.
* By hours, it was downloading some 64Bit versions of iis tools.
- Hades666
Next, 64Bit running is 64Bit appPool is limitless to an extent. The limit is 8TB.... not 2GB. It has a large base for addresses.
That is all.
I would suggest 64Bit and just test your applications. I would say about 90% of all my migrations from 32 -> 64 and IIS6 -> IIS7 have gone through with vary limited issuese that were addressed within a couple of hours.
* By hours, it was downloading some 64Bit versions of iis tools.
- Hades666
Featured Post
Question has a verified solution.
If you are experiencing a similar issue, please ask a related question
Today I came across an interesting issue that had me pulling my hair out. I was troubleshooting a new internal web site which uses integrated security instead of anonymous. When browsing the site from my laptop, I was able to access it with no iss…
If you don't have the right permissions set for your WordPress location in IIS, you won't be able to perform automatic updates. Here's how to fix the problem.
If you're a developer or IT admin, you’re probably tasked with managing multiple websites, servers, applications, and levels of security on a daily basis. While this can be extremely time consuming, it can also be frustrating when systems aren't wor…
In this video we outline the Physical Segments view of NetCrunch network monitor. By following this brief how-to video, you will be able to learn how NetCrunch visualizes your network, how granular is the information collected, as well as where to f…
Suggested Courses
Course of the Month2 days, 17 hours left to enroll
696 members asked questions and received personalized solutions in the past 7 days.
Join the community of 500,000 technology professionals and ask your questions.