Time to get 64bit ready?

May 17th, 2007 • Related • Filed Under

http://www.pcpro.co.uk/news/113114/end-in-sight-for-32bit-microsoft-operating-systems.html

Microsoft has announced that Windows Server 2008 will be the last 32-bit system it releases, for servers or clients, as it makes its way fully into the world of 64-bit computing.

Speaking at the WinHEC 2007 conference in Los Angeles, Microsoft chairman Bill Gates outlined the benefits of 64-bit computing, such as the amount of information that can be crunched in one go as a data set and advanced memory technology.

However, Gates admitted there are still challenges to overcome on the road to full 64-bit support. ‘For the industry it does mean a change in drivers,’ he said. ‘We can’t have a 32-bit driver with 32-bit pointers able to put information anywhere into a 64-bit address space. And so although it’s not a dramatic change to create a 64-bit driver, there’s still work to be done. The industry I’d say is about halfway through getting all those pieces in place. So, we’re certainly pushing that, and trying to make that very straightforward for all of you.’

Time therefore to start looking at the server estate and starting the upgrade process, whether its refreshing the server estate to newer, faster and still energy efficient boxes, or considering virtualization (ideally you’d do both).

The 64bit operating system should bring advantages to the platform, but we’ll need the driver support, the right hardware and all the applications to be ported to fully benefit from the 64bit OS, and the 64bit technologies.

discussion by DISQUS
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