Networker 7.5 32-bit versus 64-bit

[houston]

Hi all,

I would like to understand the advantages of the 64-bit version versus the 32-bit version. We are planning a migration from 7.4 to 7.5 and in this context we plan to go from 32-bit to 64-bit as well. I currently do not see what the 64-bit version will bring us.

We have a heterogeneous environment with Linux, Solaris and AIX and since the AIX version of Networker 7.5 is only available as 32-bit version we would like to keep our environment as similar as possible.

Are there any reason why we should prefer the 64-bit version to the 32-bit version?

Cheers,
Jay

 

[houston]

I received a response from EMC. There is no operational difference in the 32-bit version and the 64-bit version for AIX. There is only a difference for the binaries that talk to device drivers but the main binary runs as a 32-bit executable in the 32-bit kernel of AIX as well as in the 64-bit kernel. EMC delivers the appropriate 64-bit respectively 32-bit binaries for that, depending on the type of the AIX kernel.
This means that the EMC Networker 32-bit version for AIX is actually a 64-bit version because it runs on an AIX 64-bit kernel serving the 64-bit device drivers.

Compared to Linux and Solaris where you have seperated versions for 32-bit and 64-bit - which means that EMC has to maintain two versions - there is only one version for both AIX kernels - which I learned is easier to maintain.

This is great news because we can now move all platforms to 64-bit since all platforms deliver real 64-bit support.

I thought this might be interesting for everyone to know ;-)

Cheers, Jay.