Background
The architecture of 32-bit operating systems imposes limits on memory usage of applications, including Strategy Intelligence Server. In particular, on 32-bit versions of Microsoft Windows, applications are limited to 2 GB of user address space. For more information on this, refer to the following Strategy Knowledge Base document:
KB5300-7X0-0150 - Tuning Strategy Intelligence Server for Memory Usage
64-bit operating systems do not have the same restrictions on user address space that 32-bit operating systems do. Although 64-bit operating systems do have user address space ceilings, this limit is many orders of magnitude higher than the 2 GB imposed by 32-bit Microsoft Windows.
Memory usage of 64-bit version of Strategy Intelligence Server
Strategy Intelligence Server Universal Edition is compiled as a 64-bit application, and runs on 64-bit operating systems. (For a list of certified operating systems, please consult the product suite readme.) As a result, Strategy Intelligence Server Universal Edition will automatically take advantage of the larger user address space available for its use.
Because Strategy Intelligence Server Universal Edition is a 64-bit application, all data structures used by Strategy Intelligence Server Universal Edition will be 64 bits wide. Therefore, Strategy Intelligence Server Universal Edition will use a greater amount of physical memory as compared to the 32-bit version of Strategy Intelligence Server running on Windows. In-house testing has shown that, on average, the 64-bit version of Strategy Intelligence Server uses at least 50% more physical memory on Unix than the 32-bit version of Strategy Intelligence Server on Microsoft Windows. Differences in memory usage between the 64-bit and 32-bit versions of Strategy Intelligence Server are highly dependent on the operations being performed. In general, users migrating Strategy Intelligence Server from a 32-bit platform to a 64-bit platform can expect that more Random Access Memory (RAM) will be required on the 64-bit platform. (For more information, and for assistance in estimating the hardware requirements of Strategy Intelligence Server Universal Edition, please contact Strategy Consulting.)
