When I started using Qlikview, I mistakenly believed I would not need the 64bit version of Server. I thought that because my Analyzer users were using the QV Windows Client, the memory required to hold the document would come from the user’s machine. Wrong. When a document is opened from the server, the document is loaded into server memory.

The 32bit Server uses a single 2GB address space to contain all the currently loaded documents. When the number of users increased, and more importantly, the number of concurrent documents, the Server ran out of memory. This unfortunately causes a Server crash, taking all the users down, not just the user that pushed it over the limit. It became clear we needed the 64bit edition.

Upgrading the Server (QVS) to 64bit was easy. It immediately solved the memory issue and allowed for many documents to be used simultaneously with no problem.

QV Publisher (QVP) turned out to be a different story. I initially installed Publisher on the same machine as Server but immediately ran into a problem with the availability of 64bit ODBC drivers.

Any ODBC Driver used in 64bit Windows must be written as 64bit capable. I was using four ODBC data sources – IBM DB2, MS SQLServer, Lotus Domino and SAS. 64Bit SQLServer drivers are supplied with the OS. DB2 64bit drivers are available, but they can be expensive. The sticking point was that there were no 64bit drivers available for Lotus Domino and SAS.

My first step was to move Publisher to a 32bit machine. This turns out to be a recommended practice anyway – host Server and Publisher on different machines. But I also had an application in development that would require 64bit for a full reload. How would I reload this application when it moved to production? I expected I would see more of these applications that required 64bit for reload.

Publisher provides for defining multiple Execution Services (XS) on different machines. XS is the service that performs the reload process. The multiple XS’s can be viewed and managed from a single Publisher Control panel screen. This feature allowed me to define an additional XS on a 64 bit server.

My configuration now consists of three servers. A 64bit QVS, one 32bit QVP and one 64bit QVP. The 32bit QVP is loaded with all the ODBC drivers I need, the 64bit QVP has no drivers installed. The restriction in this configuration is that reloads on the 64bit QVP may only load QVDs and other non-ODBC datasources. In some cases, this may require a script to be split into two or more documents. Thus far, this restriction has proven to be only a minor inconvenience. The two reloads can be connected together by utilizing a RequestEDX task to trigger the second reload task.

We chose not to migrate the developer workstations to 64bit due to the limited availability of ODBC drivers and other software. Most of the applications that require 64bit for reload can still be developed on a 32bit machine by loading a limited number of records. We did set up a single shared 64bit workstation that can be used by any developer when they require 64bit.

Migrating QVS to 64bit provides the capacity to support many concurrent documents and users. If you plan to use the 64bit QVP, check on 64bit driver availability as part of your planning process.