Kernel and application cooperative memory management

Details Kernel and application cooperative memory management Kernel and application cooperative memory management

2006-02-28

2009-06-23

Thomas, Shane M (Department: 2186)

Electrical computers and digital processing systems: memory

Storage accessing and control

Control technique

C711S203000, C711SE12069, C711SE12070

Reexamination Certificate

active

07552293

ABSTRACT:
Embodiments of the present invention provide a mechanism for an operating system and applications to cooperate in memory management. Applications register with the operating system for cooperative memory management. The operating system monitors the memory and determines a memory “pressure” related to the amount of demand for the memory. As the memory pressure increases, the operating system provides a memory pressure signal as feedback to the registered applications. The operating system may send this signal to indicate it is about to commence evicting pages from the memory or when it has commenced swapping out application data. In response to the signal, the registered applications may evaluate the memory pressure, determine which data should be freed, if any, and provide this information back to the operating system. The operating system may then free those portions of memory relinquished by the applications. By releasing data the system may thus avoid swapping and increase its performance.

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Microsoft Computer Dictionary, fifth edition, “autopolling” entry, Microsoft Press, 2002.

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