SAPLPD or SAPSPRINT on Windows 64-bit printserver

Question

Hi Forum,
we currently have the following environment:
- SAP ERP 6.0 with NW 7.0 on HP-UX platform
- Clients with SAPGUI 710 on Windows Vista
- Printer on a Windows 32-bit printserver connected with host spool access method 'S'
Now the printserver will be replaced by a new one with Windows 64-bit platform and I have the following questions - although a have read that basically SAPLPD is no longer supported.....:
1) Can I simply use again SAPLPD on the new Windows 64-bit printserver?
2) If it is a MUST to use SAPSPRINT instead of SAPLPD in the 64-bit environment then I have some more questions:
    Are there any changes necessary in SAP backend (SP01,....) when switching from SAPLPD to SAPSPRINT?
    Is the configuration of SAPSPRINT similar to SAPLPD (e.g. using another port number than 515, ....)
    Is it a problem when some printers run on a 32-bit printserver and other printers on a 64-bit printserver?
    Is the SAPSPRINT also included in the downloadable packages of SAPGUI?
    Is there any direct connection between the SAPSPRINT version and the SAPGUI version - will I have to change the GUI version?
Many thanks in advance for your replies and best regards
Günter Aigner

Answer 1

Hi;
it won't run any faster or slower, performances are comparable. But using 64 bits can dramatically simplify deployment architecture, a big system can have to run like 10 instances of the webapp server with 2GB of memory for each instance in order to handle the load, with 64 bits servers, they would need only 2 instances (2 for failover) with 10GB or memory  each (and as much CPUs as 5 32 bits instances) so for the system administration team, that's only 2 webapp server instances to manage instead of 10, which sould be easier.
As a summary, the big thing with 64bits is that the 2GB limit of 32 bits process disapears and hence we can have a few big instances of a sever instead of a lot of small ones.
Regards;
Lionel