JPH0756800A - Dynamic management device for memory area - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To make it possible to allocate the saving, destination of a memory space to a proper external storage device in accordance with the priority and importance of a process. CONSTITUTION:When there is no free area for storing the data of a process to be executed in a main storage device 10, this memory area dynamic management device saves the memory space of another process on the device 10 to a secondary storage device 11. The management device is provided with various secondary storage devices 11 connected to a computer system, tables 13, 14 allowing all processes to be executed in the device 10 to correspond to respective secondary storage devices 11 through coefficients expressing the priority and importance of respective processes and a saving destination judging means 16 for judging which secondary storage device is to be adopted to save data to its swap area by referring to the tables 13, 14 at the time of saving the memory space of a process to the device 11.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a memory management device of an operating system installed in a computer system, and more particularly, when saving a memory space of a process in a main storage device to a secondary storage device. The present invention relates to a dynamic management device for a memory swap area.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art A computer system loads a program describing a certain work content into a main storage device, and a CPU processes an instruction group written therein to perform a predetermined work. Execution of programs with different work content is C
The resources such as the PU, the main memory, and the external memory are secured and used with independent control, and this independent flow of control is called a process (or task).

In a conventional computer system, as shown in FIG. 2, a process management mechanism manages a plurality of processes and controls hardware to realize an environment for each process.
FIG. 3 shows the three basic states of the process.
One process has an execution state, an executable state, and a stop state. The process management mechanism executes the process in the above 3
Execution proceeds while transitioning between two states. The process management mechanism prepares a process descriptor that describes each process and manages the state transition by operating it.

By the way, in the above-mentioned multi-process management, there is a case where the virtual storage system using the secondary storage device of the computer system is adopted because the storage capacity may be largely insufficient only with the main storage device. Many.

In the virtual memory system, an address space for storing a process is expanded to a secondary memory device, and a virtual address of a process to be executed is translated into a main memory address by a dynamic address translation mechanism.

In the address translation by the dynamic address translation mechanism, if the memory space of the process to be executed is not in the main storage device, swap-out and swap-in processing as shown in FIG. 4 occurs. That is, the memory space of a predetermined process (program B) is saved in the secondary storage device from among various processes having a memory space in the main storage device. Then, in the empty area formed on the main memory,
Process to be executed on secondary storage (program C)
Swap in the memory space of.

The necessary data described in the memory space swapped out by this processing is stored in the swap area of the secondary storage device and used when the process is executed next time.

Since the memory management in the computer system described above is managed by the operating system, it is managed in a unified manner regardless of the usage form of the system due to the nature of the operating system, and the save destination is determined as the swap area. It was defined as a single area on a single device.

[0009]

As described above, the memory management device of the computer system operating in the multi-process is as follows.
Regardless of the importance of the process and the required processing speed, the save destination of the memory space of various processes was assigned to the same external storage device, so the computer system can be optimized according to the importance of the process. It was difficult.

The present invention has been made in view of the above circumstances, and expands the degree of freedom of the save destination of the memory space of various processes, so that an appropriate swap area can be set according to the priority and importance of each process. It is an object of the present invention to provide a dynamic management device for a memory area, which can allocate data and optimize a computer system.

[0011]

In order to achieve the above object, a dynamic management device for a memory area according to the present invention has a free space for storing process data of a process to be newly executed in a main storage device of a computer system. When there is no area, in a device that saves the memory space of another process on the main storage device to the swap area on the secondary storage device connected to the computer system, various devices connected to the computer system A table in which the secondary storage device and all processes executed on the main storage device are made to correspond to the swap area of each secondary storage device via a coefficient indicating the priority or importance of each process. And when saving the memory space of the process on the main storage device to the secondary storage device, refer to the table and select the swap area of any secondary storage device. Save destination determining means for determining whether to save, and swap out means for saving the memory space of the corresponding process in the main storage device to the swap area of the corresponding secondary storage device according to the determination result of the save destination determining means It is configured to include.

[0012]

In the memory area dynamic management apparatus of the present invention, when it becomes necessary to save the memory space of a process on the main storage device to the secondary storage device, the save destination determination means refers to the table and The backup secondary storage device corresponding to the process coefficient is determined. The memory space of the process is swapped out by the swap-out means to the determined swap area of the secondary storage device.

[0013]

EXAMPLES Examples of the present invention will be described below. FIG. 1 shows an operation concept of an embodiment according to the present invention. In this embodiment, the main storage device 10 is connected to the computer system, and the secondary storage device groups 11 having different processing speeds are connected. The main storage device 10 provides a real address space which is a memory area of an execution process. The secondary storage device group 11 includes disk devices 11a, 11b, and I
It is composed of a C disk device 11c and is defined as a swap area for various processes.

An operating system 12 that manages this computer system manages a main storage device 10 and a secondary storage device group 11. Operating system 12
Has a process priority table 13, a swap area management table 14, a write / read processing unit 15, a swap area allocation module 16, and the like.

The process priority table 13 is a table in which a coefficient representing the priority or importance of each process corresponding to various programs executed in this computer system is registered in association with each process. Process priority table 1
The coefficient registered in No. 3 can be freely rewritten by the operator.

The swap area management table 14 is a table in which each coefficient registered in the process priority table 13 is associated with a swap area as a save destination of the memory area. Each swap area corresponds to the secondary storage device group 1
1 and are allocated to the secondary storage device 11 having the optimum processing speed according to the priority or importance of each process.

The writing / reading processing section 15 is a section for managing writing / reading of data to / from the secondary storage device group 11. The swap area allocation module 16 is a part that determines a swap area using the process priority table 13 and the swap area management table 14 when the need for swap out occurs.

The dynamic address translation mechanism 17 functions as a part of the operating system 12. The dynamic address translation mechanism 17 translates a virtual address of a process to be executed into a real address, and refers to the process memory area management table 18 to determine whether the memory area of the process to be executed is not in the main storage device 10. When a swap-in occurs and there is no free area in the main storage device 10, a swap-out occurs.

The process memory area management table 18 is
It is a table that manages free areas on the main storage device 10 and also manages memory areas of processes swapped out to the secondary storage device group 11. The contents of this table are updated every time the contents stored in the main storage device 10 and the contents stored in the secondary storage device group 11 change.

Next, the operation of this embodiment configured as described above will be described. When a program execution request is issued, the dynamic address translation mechanism 17 refers to the process memory area management table 18 to determine whether the memory area of the process corresponding to the program to be executed exists in the main storage device 10. To do. If the memory area of the process to be executed is on the main storage device 10, the virtual address assigned to the memory area of the process corresponding to the program requested to be executed is converted into the real address of the main storage device 10.

On the other hand, when the memory area of the process to be executed is not in the main storage device 10, it is determined whether or not there is a free area in the main storage device 10 to secure the memory area of the process. Refer to and judge. If there is a sufficient free area in the main storage device 10, a swap-in request is issued and the secondary storage device 11 in which the memory area of the corresponding process exists is notified to the operating system 12 as swap-in information.

When the operating system 12 receives the swap-in request from the dynamic address translation mechanism 17, it determines the secondary storage device 11 in which the memory area of the process to be executed is stored based on the swap-in information. The memory area is taken out from the determined secondary storage device 11. Then, the dynamic address translation mechanism 17 translates the virtual address assigned to the fetched memory area into a real address and writes it into the main storage device 10 (swap-in).

If there is no free area in the main memory 10 to secure a memory area for a new process to be executed, the dynamic address translation mechanism 17 issues a swap-out request.

In the operating system 12, when the swap-out request is received from the dynamic address translator 17, the swap area allocation module 16 executes the process in the standby state on the main storage device 10 or the process which is not scheduled to be executed for a long time. Identifies the process as a swap-out target. Then, the coefficient of the process to be swapped out is obtained from the process priority table 13,
The swap area identifier corresponding to the obtained coefficient is derived from the swap area management table 14. The memory space of the main memory 10 of the process to be swapped out is moved to the swap area of the secondary storage device 11 determined based on the derived swap area identifier (swap out).

When the swap-out is completed, the memory space of the process requesting the swap-in is similarly swapped in to the memory area on the main storage device which has become a free area due to the swap-out.

According to the present embodiment as described above, the memory area of the process on the main storage device 10 is stored in any secondary storage device among the various secondary storage device groups 11 connected to the computer system. Devices can be selected and swapped out. Therefore, a high-speed external storage device can be assigned to a process that emphasizes processing time performance, and a low-speed external storage device can be assigned to a process that does not require high-speed processing, facilitating optimization of the computer system. There is an advantage that can be achieved.

Further, since the swap area of each process is distributed to a plurality of external storage devices, there is an effect of reducing the influence when the external storage device fails. Further, according to the present embodiment, by only changing the coefficient indicating the priority or importance of each process registered in the process priority table 13, the swap area of the process related to the change can be set to, for example, the processing speed. It can be changed to a different external storage device. Therefore, it is not necessary to reconstruct the basic software for each system, and the application system can be optimally adjusted only by changing the coefficient set in the table. The present invention is not limited to the above embodiments, and various modifications can be made without departing from the gist of the present invention.

[0028]

As described above in detail, according to the present invention, the degree of freedom of the save destination of the memory space of various processes is expanded, and an appropriate swap area is allocated according to the priority and importance of each process. It is possible to provide a dynamic management device for a memory area that can optimize the computer system.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a diagram showing an operation concept of an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a conceptual diagram of multi-process management.

FIG. 3 is a diagram showing a state change of a process.

FIG. 4 is a diagram for explaining swap-out and swap-in operations.

[Explanation of symbols]

10 ... Main storage device, 11 ... Secondary storage device group, 12 ... Operating system, 13 ... Process priority table, 14 ... Swap area management table, 15 ... Write / read processing unit, 16 ... Swap area allocation module, 17 ... Dynamic address translation mechanism, 18 ... Process memory area management table.

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. When there is no free area for storing process data of a process to be newly executed in the main storage device of the computer system, the memory space of another process in the main storage device is connected to the computer system. A dynamic management device for a memory area to be saved in a swap area on a secondary storage device, wherein various secondary storage devices connected to the computer system and all processes executed on the main storage device Via a coefficient representing the priority or importance of each of these processes,
A table corresponding to the swap area of each of the secondary storage devices, and when saving the memory space of the process on the main storage device to the secondary storage device, refer to the table to determine which secondary storage device Backup destination determining means for determining whether to save to the swap area, and the memory space of the corresponding process on the main storage device to the swap area of the corresponding secondary storage device according to the determination result of the save destination determining means. A dynamic management device for a memory area, comprising a swap-out means.