The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Jun. 29, 2004
Filed:
Oct. 04, 2001
Minjie Lin, Sunnyvale, CA (US);
Steven Howard Berl, Piedmont, CA (US);
Cisco Technology, Inc., San Jose, CA (US);
Abstract
A memory usage data structure (MUDS) is maintained for each process executing in the computer system, the MUDS having a bitmap field having a bit corresponding to each block of allocatable memory. A bit corresponding to a selected memory block is set to the value of “1” when the selected memory block is allocated to the selected process. The bit corresponding to the selected memory block is set to the value of “0” when the selected memory block is not allocated to the selected process. A master MUDS is generated by combining the MUDS maintained by each process, the master MUDS having bits set to a value of “0” for free memory blocks, and the master MUDS having bits set to a value of “1” for memory blocks allocated to any processes of the multiprocess computer system. In response to the master MUDS, all memory blocks having a corresponding bit set to a value of “0” are returned to free memory. Each process may execute on a different processor in a multiprocess or computer system, for example on interface processors of a router. In a router the memory usage data structure is referred to as the Buffer Usage Data Structure (BUDS). The master BUDS is generated, and any processor not submitting a processor BUDS does not have any bits in the master BUDS set to a value of “1”. Accordingly, any memory previously allocated to a processor which has crashed, or died, is then returned to the global free queue.