A memory distribution mechanism for object oriented applications

Many applications, particularly in Computer-Aided Design (CAD), require large amounts of memory, limiting the size of problems which can be handled. This paper presents a new mechanism which exploits the large amount of memory available in a cluster of workstations for programs that are designed in an object-oriented manner. The memory required for each object may be allocated in other machines on the network, and any references to the object return the desired item from the appropriate machine in a transparent fashion. Experimental results are provided to demonstrate the eeectiveness of this approach for a particular memory-intensive CAD application.