development/web server should be on 32 or 64 bit window server?

Question

I am new to 2003 64 bit server and wondering if i publish my .net web site on 64 or 32 bit window server. I am designing asp.net 4.0 site, database (oracle) server is 64 bit window server 2003 and development server is window server 2003 64 bit. I am getting all sort of different issues on 64 bit development server like having two different program files folder, installing Oracle data provider and problem configuring IIS with frontpage extention.

Can i publish my site on 32 bit development server 2003 and leave database server 2003 on 64 bit?

Answer 1

It shouldn't pose a problem to have your web server be 32 bit and your sql server 64 bit. That is, as long as your web server process doesn't consume to much memory. Typically, web servers and middle tiers are rather thin and sql servers are more aggressive at consuming memory (cache what they can).

It will affect how much addressable space:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/32bit

32-bit memory addresses can directly access 4 GB of byte-addressable memory

That said, as long as you have a 64 bit capable processor (most are these days) and all your apps and drivers that you depend on are capable of running on a 64 bit OS, there's not many reasons not to run a 64 bit OS. The .net stack and everything you write in .net will run fine on .net - it compiles to IL and JITs to 32/64 bit binaries on demand. Check your projects build/compile options to ensure you're not forcing 32bit and check your apppool settings in IIS. Finally, make sure you're not loading any native IIS ISAPI extensions etc... that are a bit mismatch.

Your web server and sql server are running on different boxes and in different processes likely communicating over the network via something like sockets so each doesn't have any knowledge about how much addressable memory the other has. Each is a black box to each other with an agreed upon network protocol.