SQL SERVER Memory Management

Introduction

In this article, you will learn how to use SQL Server Memory Management. Generally, SQL Server manages memory in two different ways.

32 BIT OS

In 32-bit OS, SQL Server divides the memory into two parts: one will have the data pages, and the other will have the rest, like indexes, compiled queries, results of joins, and so on.

32-bit is enough to handle 4 GB at a time. The default configuration will be 2GB for the operating system and 2 GB for the application.

If you have 64 GB of RAM with a 32-bit system, you will have only 1 GB for the shared information. You can modify this in your system, but it may adversely affect the performance. You should do various load tests before doing the manipulation in production.

64 BIT OS

Mostly 64, bit systems are highly recommended for production database servers for high performance. In 64 Bit OS, the division of data pages and shared information disappears. Here, the SQL SERVER can use the entire memory for any object. One more advantage here is that the memory usage limit is increased up to 2 TB.

32 BIT OS vs 64 BIT OS

The memory limit does not bind 64 BITS as in 32 BIT OS.
More memory is available in 64 Bit OS for performing complex queries and supporting essential database operations.
64 Bit provides enhanced parallelism, whereas 32 BIT doesn't provide that.
64 Bit enhances performance by moving more data between the cache and processors in shorter periods.
Index creation operations benefit from larger addressable memory in 64 Bit systems.
The 64-bit architecture can substantially reduce overall CPU utilization and latency by eliminating the need to evict procedures from the cache and compile frequently.
Server-side cursors, which are often heavy consumers of memory, can more readily be kept in memory, resulting in better performance.
Operations such as aggregation and sorting need to work with the entire dataset. These operations can benefit from the increased memory support provided by the 64-bit platform.