How long does it take to startup SQL Service with AWE enabled

Hi,
We have a fail-over cluster with a SQL Server 2000 instance installed on it.
There are 6GB memory available on the cluster, and we have the /PAE switch
turned on. I want to enable AWE in SQL Server and allocate 3-4GB to SQL
server. but from what I read about turn on AWE, some paper warned that the
startup process of SQL service will take a lot longer. Does anybody have
experience about how long it takes to startup SQL in a cluster with AWE
enabled with 3GB memory allocated? And if we experience a timeout error
before SQL Service started, what can we do?
Thanks
Hong Wang
Yes, the failover process will take longer with AWE enabled. The reason is
that the AWE memory must be "zeroed out." This takes extra time. However,
we have found that the Recovery Interval controls most of the failover
timing and that managing the Shared Volumes consumes more time than the AWE
clearing.
With 8 GB RAM, Windows 2000, SQL Server max server memory set to 6.5 GB, a
typical failover for a busy system could take 3 to 5 minutes. The recovery
process could take up to 15 minutes or so on a busy system once services
were restored on the new node.
There is also a KB article that discusses application processes "awareness"
of clustered instances. Basically, the application must use retry logic for
detected database connectivity errors, which can be trapped. However, this
would be good practice even if the database was hosted on a stand-alone
system.
Sincerely,
Anthony Thomas

"Hong Wang" <HongWang@.discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:4CBDA708-88EF-49F6-A55C-70C3F90F5F1A@.microsoft.com...
> Hi,
> We have a fail-over cluster with a SQL Server 2000 instance installed on
it.
> There are 6GB memory available on the cluster, and we have the /PAE switch
> turned on. I want to enable AWE in SQL Server and allocate 3-4GB to SQL
> server. but from what I read about turn on AWE, some paper warned that the
> startup process of SQL service will take a lot longer. Does anybody have
> experience about how long it takes to startup SQL in a cluster with AWE
> enabled with 3GB memory allocated? And if we experience a timeout error
> before SQL Service started, what can we do?
> Thanks
> Hong Wang