AWE Enable

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AWE Enable

adeel.imtiaz

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Points: 1805
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May 3, 2012 at 5:18 am

#150934

Dear All,
I have 14 GB on my Windows 2003 EE 32 Bit environment with out PAE switch.
I want to set 12 Gb for my SQL 2005 EE 32 bit.
How can i set AWE to 12 GB ?
Thanks
Adeel imtiaz

Viewing 9 posts - 1 through 8 (of 8 total)

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Suresh B. SSC-Insane Points: 22986 More actions · Answer 1

1) EXEC sys.sp_configure N'awe enabled', N'1'

GO

RECONFIGURE WITH OVERRIDE

GO

2) EXEC sys.sp_configure N'max server memory (MB)', N'12288'

GO

RECONFIGURE WITH OVERRIDE

GO

3) Grant Lock Pages in Memory rights to the Service Account

adeel.imtiaz SSCommitted Points: 1805 More actions · Answer 2

Thank you for your reply.

I have did step 1 and step 2.

How can i perform step 3 ? Please elaborate.

How can we (Grant Lock Pages in Memory rights to the Service Account) ?

Thanks

Adeel imtiaz

adeel.imtiaz SSCommitted Points: 1805 More actions · Answer 3

I have perform step 3 as guided in above replies.

http://sqlserverperformance.wordpress.com/2011/02/14/sql-server-and-the-lock-pages-in-memory-right-in-windows-server/

But in Task manager my memory is still not showing 12 GB ram.

Please see attachment.

Ant-Green SSC Guru Points: 113507 More actions · Answer 4

Generally AWE and PAE are used together to that Windows can assign more then 4GB of RAM to a single 32bit process.

As your over 12GB in the box I wouldnt add in the /3GB switch as well as the PAE switch as we had issues with them both in a server with over 12GB of RAM.

Also you wont see SQL use 12GB of RAM in task manager it's just one of them things in 32bit Windows. Also remember that SQL will only take memory as and when it needs it, so if it never needs 12GB of RAM it wont use 12GB of RAM.

adeel.imtiaz SSCommitted Points: 1805 More actions · Answer 5

I do not have enabled set /PAE and /3GB switch in my windows 2003 32 bit EE in my system.

I just enable AWE to 12 GB my performing above steps.

As you have mentioned the TASK MANAGER thing that i understand well.

1) EXEC sys.sp_configure N'awe enabled', N'1'

GO

RECONFIGURE WITH OVERRIDE

GO

2) EXEC sys.sp_configure N'max server memory (MB)', N'12288'

GO

RECONFIGURE WITH OVERRIDE

GO

3) Grant Lock Pages in Memory rights to the Service Account

Just to confirm one thing more please confirm the above steps are just fine with me as i only required AWE to 12 GB.

Ant-Green SSC Guru Points: 113507 More actions · Answer 6

Personally I would put PAE switch in the boot.ini file so that Windows can assign more then 4GB of memory to the SQL process. I have never used a 32bit machine without the PAE switch so cannot confirm if it will work and assign more than 4GB of process space to the SQL process without it.

quotes from MSDN

AWE is a set of APIs that allows a process to allocate nonpaged physical memory and then dynamically map portions of this memory into the virtual address space of the process.

AWE does not require PAE or 4GT but is often used together with PAE to allocate more than 4 GB of physical memory from a single 32-bit process.

adeel.imtiaz SSCommitted Points: 1805 More actions · Answer 7

Actually Anthony problem is my client has enabled /PAE in there production environment.

As per my understanding we use /PAE for physical address extension. and use /3GB for increase windows process beyond 2 gb.

We have decided to give dedicated RAM to SQL 2005 12 GB out of 14 GB so that SQL can perform there function well.

Ant-Green SSC Guru Points: 113507 More actions · Answer 8

In tests that I have done, 32bit server >=4GB RAM <=12GB RAM need /3GB and /PAE, servers >12GB RAM only need /PAE

These general rules have always provided us the best performance in our environment, it might be different in your environment but you will almost certainly need PAE so that the SQLServer can use more than 4GB of RAM even if you have set SQL to use AWE and 12GB of RAM.

Out of curiosity, is there a reason this isn't 64bit?