Group Address Range Transfer for Nonvolatile Memory Atomicity
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing approaches to maintaining memory consistency in non-volatile memory (NVM) systems, such as Memristor, struggle to scale for clustered, federated, and remote replication scenarios, as strict consistency is cost-prohibitive beyond a limited physical scope, and existing copy-on-write methods do not ensure atomicity across multiple memory systems.
Innovation Solution
Coupling copy-on-write operations with synchronization operations and defining groups to achieve atomicity, where writes are redirected to a copy of the original NVM location, and using a group table to manage address ranges for coordinated synchronization across nodes, ensuring that data remains consistent and recoverable even in the event of power loss or failure.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If strict consistency is enforced across memory systems, then data reliability is improved, but system cost and complexity increase beyond acceptable limits
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments memory address ranges into groups that can be independently managed and synchronized. By dividing the memory space into manageable groups with associated group tables, the system achieves consistency for critical data regions without requiring strict consistency across the entire memory system, thereby reducing overall system complexity while maintaining reliability where needed.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent applies different consistency management strategies to different memory regions. Critical address ranges within groups enforce strict consistency through group table management, while non-critical regions use more flexible copy-on-write operations. This local differentiation allows the system to maintain data reliability for important data without incurring the full cost of system-wide strict consistency.
2Productivity
If copy-on-write operations are used for memory management, then write performance is improved, but atomicity across multiple memory systems cannot be ensured
Solution Approach 1:
The patent merges copy-on-write operations with group-based synchronization mechanisms. When a write operation occurs, the system uses copy-on-write to redirect writes to a copy of the original NVM location, maintaining write performance. Simultaneously, the group table tracks which address ranges have been modified, and synchronization operations ensure atomicity by coordinating these changes across multiple memory systems, thus combining the benefits of both approaches.
3Reliability
If atomicity is enforced across disjoint memory locations, then data consistency is improved, but performance disruption increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies atomicity enforcement selectively to specific address ranges that are organized into groups, rather than enforcing it across all memory locations. The group table identifies which regions require strict atomicity, allowing the system to maintain data consistency for critical data while using more performance-friendly copy-on-write operations for less critical regions, thus achieving partial atomicity where it matters most.
Data Source
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AI summary
A group address range is mapped to a memory address range of a nonvolatile memory. A first memory address of the memory address range is to be copied to a volatile memory if the first memory address is mapped to the group address range and a write access is requested for the first memory address. The group address range is transferred from a first node to a second node in response to a synch command. The copied address is to be written the NVM after the group address range is transferred.