Classic ASP on large memory server

Question

I have a client with a large ASP app that apparently is fairly memory intensive. I’m helping them migrate to new hardware they have running Win2k8 R2. They have 4 physical servers with 32gb of RAM each. I’m making the assumption that ASP apps run as a x32 process. So I see that we have two options:

1. On the application pool enable web gardens.
2. Use the physical servers as VM hosts and split the box into say 4 web servers each.

Any thoughts on which path will provide us better performance? I’m just not really sure how ASP will handle a machine with lots of memory, and I’m worried it won’t really be able to address the memory well. (you can ignore all the obvious stuff like increased maintenance of 16 web servers vs 4, or the flexibility virtualization gets us over physical servers, etc)

Answer 1

You might want to double check that assumption about 32 bits: See also this question

Answer 2

It doesn't necessarily follow that an ASP app will require a 32bit process. The common APIs such as ADODB are available in 64 bit so there is a possibility you could run it in a 64 bit process which is certainly worth pursuing first.

When it comes to Web Gardens and ASP if the ASP application makes use of the Session object then you are in trouble. Unlike with Windows Load Balancing there is no way to affiliate a session with a specific process. So if you do need the Session object that just leaves you with VM hosts.

If you can run without Session object the a Web Garden approach is going to be better than multiple VMs.