Reto Achermann
Assistant Professor
Systopia Lab
Department of Computer Science
University of British Columbia
Not Your Parents' Physical Address Space
Authors
Simon Gerber, Gerd Zellweger, Reto Achermann, Kornilios Kourtis, Timothy Roscoe and Dejan Milojicic
Venue
Proceedings of the 15th USENIX Conference on Hot Topics in Operating Systems (HotOS'15)
Links
Abstract
A physical memory address is no longer the stable concept it was. We demonstrate how modern computer systems from rack-scale to SoCs have multiple physical address spaces, which overlap and intersect in complex, dynamic ways, and may be too small to even address available memory in the near future.
We present a new model of representing and interpreting physical addresses in a machine for the purposes of memory management, and outline an implementation of the model in a memory system based on capabilities which can handle arbitrary translations between physical address spaces and still globally manage system memory.
Finally, we point out future challenges in managing physical memory, of which our model and design are merely a foundation.
Bibtex
@inproceedings{Gerber:2015:YPP,
author = {Gerber, Simon and Zellweger, Gerd and Achermann, Reto and Kourtis, Kornilios and Roscoe, Timothy and Milojicic, Dejan},
booktitle = {Proceedings of the 15th USENIX Conference on Hot Topics in Operating Systems},
id = {Gerber:2015:YPP},
location = {Switzerland},
pages = {16--16},
publisher = {USENIX Association},
series = {HotOS'15},
title = {Not Your Parents' Physical Address Space},
url = {http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=2831090.2831106},
year = {2015}
}
