Managed memory cache with application-layer prefetching

摘要

In order to prevent data thrashing and the resulting performance degradation, a computer system may maintain an application-layer cache space to more effectively use physical memory and, thus, significantly improve an application-memory hit ratio and reduce disk input-output operations. In particular, the computer system may maintain a managed memory cache that is separate from a page cache. The managed memory cache may be managed according to predefined caching rules that are separate from the caching rules in the operating system that are used to manage the page cache, and these caching rules may be application-aware. Subsequently, when data for an application is accessed, the computer system may prefetch the data and associated information from disk and store the information in the managed memory cache based on data correlations associated with the application.

主权项

1. A computer-implemented method for prefetching information, the method comprising:
creating a managed memory cache that is separate from a page cache, wherein the managed memory cache is managed according to predefined caching rules that are separate from the operating-system rules that are used to manage the page cache, wherein the predefined caching rules include application-aware caching rules, wherein cache size of the managed memory cache are dynamically determined based on data-access patterns of the data entries, and wherein dynamically determining the cache size of the managed memory cache comprises determining whether to grow or to shrink the managed memory cache based on a metric that measures cache-hits for previously cached data that are subsequently removed from the managed memory cache; and prefetching the information from another memory and storing the additional information in the managed memory cache based on data correlations associated with an application executed in an environment of the operating system on the computer.