Single address space implementation in distributed systems

With reference to a distributed context consisting of computers connected by a local area network, we present the organization of a memory management system giving physical support to a uniform, persistent vision of storage according to a single address space paradigm. Our system implements a two-layer storage hierarchy in which the distributed secondary memory stores the valid data items and the primary memory supports a form of data caching, for fast processor access. The proposed system defines a small, powerful set of operations that allow application programs to exert explicit control over the memory management activities at the levels of physical storage allocation, data migration across the network, and the data movements between the secondary memory and the primary memory. The system, that has been implemented in prototype form, is assessed from a number of viewpoints. We show that the storage requirements of the information for memory management are negligible. Moreover, the number of messages necessary to determine the network location of a given data item is low and independent of both the network size and the past movements of this data item in the distributed storage. Copyright  2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.