Automatic program transformations for virtual memory computers *

Abstract

Improving the behavior of virtual memory systems is a popular subject, as evidenced by the vast number of papers in the literature. Typically, attempts to improve behavior fall into two areas—those which accept existing locality properties of programs and attempt to modify system parameters (e.g., memory allocated, window size for the working set policy, etc.), and those which attempt to reorganize programs in some way. The first approach treats programs behavioristically, i.e., without any attempt to change the original behavior of the program. This type of research generally attempts to deal with space allocation policies and replacement algorithms in order to improve the performance of the system, given the original behavior of the programs. The work of Denning, 12 , 13 Belady, 8 Chu and Opderbeck, 9 Smith, 21 Trivedi 22 and many others has contributed greatly to the evolution of operating systems and hardware for virtual memory systems.