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Title: Technical Note: Validating the BlackBerry Enterprise Server on 64-Bit Windows Server 2003

Source: http://docs.blackberry.com/en/admin/...%2064%20TA.pdf

Overview

In an IBM

® Lotus Notes® environment, the BlackBerry® Enterprise Server process (nbes.exe) runs as a task on an IBM® Lotus® Domino® server. To maintain stability and performance, the BlackBerry Enterprise Server task must be able to access sufficient virtual memory.

On a 32-bit Windows

® operating system, 32-bit applications can address up to 2 GB of virtual memory. If a process tries to address memory beyond the 2 GB limit, the process stops responding; however, in a 64-bit Windows environment, a 32-bit application that is large-address aware (that is, built with the /LARGEADDRESSAWARE:YES linker flag) can address up to 4 GB of virtual memory.

BlackBerry Enterprise Server versions 4.1 SP4 and later are large-address aware and can run on a 64-bit version of Windows Server® as a task on a 32-bit Lotus Domino server that is also large-address aware. Lotus Domino versions 7.0.1 and later are large-address aware.

Testing BlackBerry Enterprise Server version 4.1 SP6 in 32-bit and 64-bit environments

This technical note verifies that Research In Motion has tested the large-address aware feature of BlackBerry Enterprise Server version 4.1 SP6 and has validated that virtual memory usage can exceed 2 GB. For the validation, large email messages (approximately 4 MB and 22 MB in size) were sent to 2000 BlackBerry Enterprise Server users at a steady rate. The virtual memory of the BlackBerry Enterprise Server process (nbes.exe) reached over 2.7 GB. In all cases, the BlackBerry Enterprise Server process stopped responding in the 32-bit environment, but it functioned in the 64-bit environment.

Monitoring virtual memory

You can monitor virtual memory usage using the Windows Performance Monitor or other tools that permit you to view the

<server>\<process>\Virtual Bytes counter.

If your computer’s virtual memory usage is close to the 2 GB limit, you can upgrade the 32-bit Windows operating system that the BlackBerry Enterprise Server runs on to a 64-bit operating system. You must make sure that you run Lotus Domino versions 7.0.1 or later as a 32-bit application on the BlackBerry Enterprise Server. Lotus Domino versions 8.0.1 or later have been tuned to use less virtual memory. IBM supports the use of a mixed-mode environment in which both 32-bit and 64-bit Lotus Domino version 8 servers can operate.

References

For more information about IBM Lotus Domino memory usage, visit IBM - Notes/Domino Best Practices: Performance.

For more information about memory limits for Windows releases, visit Memory Limits for Windows Releases (Windows).

For more information about Lotus Domino version 8 (32-bit and 64-bit comparison), visit IBM Lotus Domino 8.0.1 for 64-bit server performance.