The DASH Virtual Memory System

David P. Anderson, Shin-Yuan Tzou and G. Scott Graham

EECS Department
University of California, Berkeley
Technical Report No. UCB/CSD-88-461
November 1988

http://www2.eecs.berkeley.edu/Pubs/TechRpts/1988/CSD-88-461.pdf

The DASH project has defined the network communication architecture for a large, high-performance distributed system. We are now designing a portable operating system kernel for the nodes of this system. The kernel is designed to run on shared-memory multiprocessors, and to exploit the performance potential of such machines.

This report describes the DASH kernel's virtual memory (VM) system. The following are key features of the VM system:

* A virtual address space is partitioned into three regions, each providing a specific function: 1) private memory, 2) read-only shared memory, and 3) interprocess communication (IPC) buffers.

* The IPC region uses VM remapping to provide data movement between virtual address spaces. Software copying is minimized.

* Tasks such as page zeroing and pageout are done by processes that can execute concurrently with other activities.

* Most of the VM system implementation is machine-independent. The interface of the machine-dependent part is designed to allow efficient implementation on a range of architectures.


BibTeX citation:

@techreport{Anderson:CSD-88-461,
    Author = {Anderson, David P. and Tzou, Shin-Yuan and Graham, G. Scott},
    Title = {The DASH Virtual Memory System},
    Institution = {EECS Department, University of California, Berkeley},
    Year = {1988},
    Month = {Nov},
    URL = {http://www2.eecs.berkeley.edu/Pubs/TechRpts/1988/5729.html},
    Number = {UCB/CSD-88-461},
    Abstract = {The DASH project has defined the network communication architecture for a large, high-performance distributed system.  We are now designing a portable operating system kernel for the nodes of this system. The kernel is designed to run on shared-memory multiprocessors, and to exploit the performance potential of such machines.   <p>This report describes the DASH kernel's virtual memory (VM) system. The following are key features of the VM system:  <br />   <br />* A virtual address space is partitioned into three regions, each providing a specific function: 1) private memory, 2) read-only shared memory, and 3) interprocess communication (IPC) buffers.   <br />  <br />* The IPC region uses VM remapping to provide data movement between virtual address spaces. Software copying is minimized.   <br />  <br />* Tasks such as page zeroing and pageout are done by processes that can execute concurrently with other activities.   <br />  <br />* Most of the VM system implementation is machine-independent. The interface of the machine-dependent part is designed to allow efficient implementation on a range of architectures.}
}

EndNote citation:

%0 Report
%A Anderson, David P.
%A Tzou, Shin-Yuan
%A Graham, G. Scott
%T The DASH Virtual Memory System
%I EECS Department, University of California, Berkeley
%D 1988
%@ UCB/CSD-88-461
%U http://www2.eecs.berkeley.edu/Pubs/TechRpts/1988/5729.html
%F Anderson:CSD-88-461