Virtualizable advanced synchronization facility

Abstract

A system and method for executing a transaction in a transactional memory system is disclosed. The system includes a processor of a plurality of processors coupled to shared memory, wherein the processor is configured to execute a section of code, including a plurality of memory access operations to the shared memory, as an atomic transaction relative to the execution of the plurality of processors. According to embodiments, the processor is configured to determine whether the memory access operations include any of a set of disallowed instructions, wherein the set includes one or more instructions that operate differently in a virtualized computing environment than in a native computing environment. If any of the memory access operations are ones of the disallowed instructions, then the processor aborts the transaction.

Description

Background technique [0001] Shared-memory computer systems allow multiple concurrently executing threads to access shared-memory locations. Unfortunately, programming correct multithreaded programs is difficult due to the complexity of coordinating concurrent memory accesses. [0002] Traditionally, to ensure program correctness, programmers have used locks or other mutual exclusion mechanisms to regulate access to shared memory locations. For example, using traditional locks, a thread can be configured to request and hold a lock on each memory location it needs exclusive access to. While the thread holds the lock, no other thread can request the lock, and therefore, no other thread can access the memory location protected by the lock. However, traditional locking techniques are vulnerable to a variety of flaws, including deadlocks, race conditions, priority inversion, software complexity, and performance limitations. [0003] An alternative approach to concurrency control ...

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However, many previous concepts and implementa

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