Oracle International Corporation

Brian Hirano

Tirthankar Lahiri

Kiran Badrinarain Goyal

Benoit Dageville

Juan R Loaiza

Arvind Nithrakashyap

Kant C Patel

Bharat C V Baddepudi

Poojan Kumar

Balasubramanian Narasimhan

Siddhartha Roychowdhury

A method and apparatus for auto-tuning memory is provided. Memory on a computer system comprises at least one shared memory area and at least one private memory area. Addresses in the shared memory area are accessible to multiple processes. Addresses in the private memory area are dedicated to individual processes. Initially, a division in the amount of memory is established between the shared and private memory areas. Subsequently, a new division is determined. Consequently, memory from one memory area is 'given' to the other memory area. In one approach, such sharing is achieved by causing the shared and private memory areas to be physically separate from each other both before and after a change in the division. The division of the amount of memory may be changed to a new division by deallocating memory from one of the memory areas and allocating that memory to the other of the memory areas.

Managing memory in a system that includes a shared memory area and a private memory area

Allocation of memory is optimized across multiple pools of memory, based on minimizing the time it takes to successfully retrieve a given data item from each of the multiple pools. First data is generated that indicates a hit rate per pool size for each of multiple memory pools. In an embodiment, the generating step includes continuously monitoring attempts to access, or retrieve a data item from, each of the memory pools. The first data is converted to second data that accounts for a cost of a miss with respect to each of the memory pools. In an embodiment, the second data accounts for the cost of a miss in terms of time. How much of the memory to allocate to each of the memory pools is determined, based on the second data. In an embodiment, the steps of converting and determining are automatically performed, on a periodic basis.

Techniques for automated allocation of memory among a plurality of pools

Growing community of inventors

Niwot, CO, United States of America

Brian Hirano