MEMORY SHARING OVER A NETWORK

摘要

Memory is shared among physically distinct, networked computing devices. Each computing device comprises a Remote Memory Interface (RMI) accepting commands from locally executing processes and translating such commands into forms transmittable to a remote computing device. The RMI also accepts remote communications directed to it and translates those into commands directed to local memory. The amount of storage capacity shared is informed by a centralized controller, either a single controller, a hierarchical collection of controllers, or a peer-to-peer negotiation. Requests that are directed to remote high-speed non-volatile storage media are detected or flagged and the process generating the request is suspended such that it can be efficiently revived. The storage capacity provided by remote memory is mapped into the process space of processes executing locally.