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APM Memory Reporting

I have a question about memory reporting, We just upgradeed our Orion server, and are testing APM to monitor the Orion SQL Server, the new server is running Windows 2003 Enterprise (32bit) and SQL 2005 Standard. The server has 12 GB RAM. SQL is configured with AWE to use 8GB RAM.

Using Perfmon SQLServer-MemoryManager-TotalServerMemory is hovering around 3.5 GB, However APM is reporting only 100MB RAM used by the SQL Server (with both SNMP and WMI)

We have a lot of SQL Servers with large amounts of RAM (both 32 and 64 bit) is there a way to have APM display correct RAM utilization?

Thanks

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aLTeReGo

Correct me if I'm wrong but it's not possible for a 32bit operating system to address more than 4GB of memory. That may be what you're looking at in Perfmon and not the actual memory being used by SQL. If you want to be absolutely sure you can open up task manager on the SQL server and look for the "sqlservr.exe" process. However much memory task manager reports for this process is what SQL Server is actually using. This number should also be the same as what you see in APM.

If you need to address more than 4GB of memory you'll need a 64Bit operating system

jbaulsir

Hmmmm....

I was under the impression that Windows 2003 Enterprise could address up to 32 GB RAM.

Solarwinds is seeing the total physical RAM in the server (see screenshot) and Perfmon shows SQL server using it. Hopefully someone with more knowledge then me can shed some light as to whats going on.

Edit

Just checked Microsoft

Memory

128 MB of RAM minimum required; maximum: 32 GB for x86-based PCs with the 32-bit version and 64 GB for Itanium-based PCs with the 64-bit version

Memory.JPG

aLTeReGo

I suggest you take a read here

People who are unfamiliar with the real meaning behind the 4GB Windows memory limit often point out that certain versions of Windows (such as Enterprise or Datacenter editions) can actually support more than 4GB of physical memory. However, adding more than 4GB of physical memory to a server still doesn't change the fact that it's a 32-bit processor accessing a 32-bit memory space. Even when more than 4GB of memory is present, each process still has the normal 2GB virtual address space, and the kernel address space is still 2GB, just as on a normal non-PAE system.

jbaulsir

OK, so the process can only address 2GB but the memory manager using PAE can provide more. So APM will not be able to "see" what the memory manager is actually providing to the process.

Is that it?