[CentOS] 64-bit CentOS - your experience

Mon Jun 29 15:04:58 UTC 2009
nate <centos at linuxpowered.net>

przemolicc at poczta.fm wrote:

> However, to continune this discussion, could you please explain why did you
> switch to 64-bit environment ?
> If you have databases and want to use buffer cache bigger then 4GB it is
> clear for me. In other words

For myself I did not switch off, I still deploy 32-bit systems
all the time, all in VMs, of the 354 linux systems I have
inventoried that are running 264  them are 64-bit, the vast
majority of which have at least 8GB of ram. 52 of the 354
systems are 32-bit VMs (VMware ESX). About 100 of those 264
systems are on the verge of being retired entirely, replaced
with newer more efficient hardware with 16GB or more of ram.

I haven't deployed a 32-bit hardware system in some time though I
also haven't deployed a new hardware system with less than 8 or 16GB
of ram in some time either(can't remember the last time I did either
one). It just doesn't make much sense to deploy a new 1GB or 2GB
or even 4GB system in real hardware these days, put it in a VM.
Of all my VMs, I have just 14 that are 64-bit(out of 66).

Just be sure to test out your apps, at my last company we tried to
deploy 64-bit on our web servers but the Ruby on Rails apps just slowed
to a crawl and chewed up a TON more memory than 32-bit, got less than
half the performance on the same hardware(HP DL380G5). Java of course
is probably the best in 64-bit.

Fortunately my current job is almost entirely java which is orders
of magnitude easier for me to manage than ruby on rails.

Unlike it seems everyone else on the list I still see a lot of value
memory wise in 32-bit systems, many applications don't require much
memory, and I like my systems as efficient as they can be.

nate