Guru's Guide to SQL Server Architecture and Internals, The

AWE

Although the BPool keeps track of which pages in AWE memory it makes use of, it cannot access them directly due to the way that Windows' AWE facility works. It accesses them by mapping physical pages in and out of the user mode address space, as I mentioned in Chapter 4.

Note that if your server has less than 3GB of physical RAM and you enable AWE use via the sp_configure awe enabled option, SQL Server will ignore it. You must have 3GB or more of physical memory in order to use Windows' AWE facility with SQL Server, as we discussed earlier in the book.