US 8,046,425 B1Granted

Distributed adaptive network memory engine

AssigneeThe Research Foundation of State University of New York

InventorsKartik Gopalan, Michael Hines, Jian Wang

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Abstract

Memory demands of large-memory applications continue to remain one step ahead of the improvements in DRAM capacities of commodity systems. Performance of such applications degrades rapidly once the system hits the physical memory limit and starts paging to the local disk. A distributed network-based virtual memory scheme is provided which treats remote memory as another level in the memory hierarchy between very fast local memory and very slow local disks. Performance over gigabit Ethernet shows significant performance gains over local disk. Large memory applications may access potentially unlimited network memory resources without requiring any application or operating system code modifications, relinkling or recompilation. A preferred embodiment employs kernel-level driver software.

Claims20

Dependent claims

A distributed remote memory access system, comprising a processor, a memory, and a packet data network interface, the processor being configured to execute memory management logic to evict a memory page from the memory directly to a server, and to retrieve a memory page evicted from the memory directly from the server, the packet data network interface being subject to communications errors resulting in packet loss such there is a likelihood of lost information representing the memory pages, wherein:

the packet data network interface and processor are configured to transmit a memory page larger than a maximum transmission unit to the server without receipt of an acknowledgement packet from the server in response to a successful communication of a respective data packet containing information from the memory page, wherein an acknowledgement is received upon successful communication of an entire memory page larger than the maximum transmission unit, subsequent to which the memory page is evicted from memory;
and
the packet data network interface and processor are configured to request retrieval of an evicted memory page larger than the maximum transmission unit through the packet data network interface from the server without transmission of acknowledgement packets to the server in response to a successful communication of a data packet containing information from the memory page, wherein an acknowledgement is sent upon successful receipt of an entire memory page.

A distributed remote memory access system, comprising server having a processor, a memory, and a packet data network interface, the processor being configured to execute memory management logic to receive an evicted memory page into the memory directly from a client, and to transmit a requested memory page directly to the client, the packet data network interface being subject to communications errors resulting in packet loss such there is a likelihood of lost information representing the memory pages, wherein:

the packet data network interface and processor are configured to transmit a memory page larger than a maximum transmission unit to the client without receipt of an acknowledgement packet from the client in response to a successful communication of a respective data packet containing information from the memory page, wherein an acknowledgement is received upon successful communication of an entire memory page larger than the maximum transmission unit;
and
the packet data network interface and processor are configured to receive an evicted memory page larger than the maximum transmission unit through the packet data network interface from the client without transmission of acknowledgement packets to the client in response to a successful communication of a data packet containing information from the memory page, wherein an acknowledgement is sent upon successful receipt of an entire memory page.

A distributed remote memory access method, comprising:

providing a processor, a memory, and a packet data network interface subject to communications errors resulting in packet loss such there is a likelihood of lost information representing the memory pages;
receiving memory pages into the memory from the packet data network interface;
transmitting memory pages from the memory to the packet data network interface,
wherein the memory page is larger than a maximum transmission unit and is communicated in a plurality of data packets, and the transmitting and receiving occur without communication of an acknowledgement packet over the packet data network interface in response to a successful communication of a respective data packet containing information from the memory page, and wherein an acknowledgement is communicated over the packet data network interface upon successful communication of an entire memory page larger than the maximum transmission unit comprising the plurality of data packets.

1 more element

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.