Paging of external memory

A method to create a virtual copy of memory, the method comprising:

• providing client-side memory access to a first memory region of a memory of a computing device, the memory in an address space addressable by a processor of the computing device, the client-side memory access provided via a communication interface of the computing device by-passing the processor;
• and
• providing client-side memory access to a second memory region of the memory of the computing device via the communication interface, wherein the second memory region is a virtual copy of the first memory region, and client-side memory access is provided to the second memory region without having copied all of the first memory region to the second memory region;
• receiving a request to read a portion of the second memory region via the communication interface;
• and
• returning data from a corresponding portion of the first memory region in response to the request to read the portion of the second memory region if the portion of the second memory region and the corresponding portion of the first memory region have not been written to and/or accessed after client-side memory access was provided to the second memory region and returning data from the second memory region if the portion of the second memory region or the corresponding portion of the first memory region have been written to and/or accessed after client-side memory access was provided to the second memory region.

A system comprising:

• a communication interface configured to communicate over a network;
• a processor;
• and
• a memory configured in an address space addressable by the processor, wherein the processor is configured to:
• memory map at least a portion of a file to a memory region included in the memory, wherein a virtual address addressable by the processor is generated, and the at least a portion of file is accessible through the memory region at the virtual address;
• and
• register the virtual address with the communication interface, wherein registration of the virtual address provides client-side memory access to the memory region, wherein the client-side memory access provides a client of the system access to the memory region over a network, the memory region accessible independently of the processor via memory access operations received from the client by the communication interface, wherein the memory access operations conform to a memory access protocol.