| | |
Summary: Operating System Implications of Fast, Cheap, Non-Volatile Memory
Katelin Bailey Luis Ceze Steven D. Gribble Henry M. Levy
University of Washington
Department of Computer Science & Engineering
{katelin, luisceze, gribble, levy}@cs.washington.edu
Abstract. The existence of two basic levels of storage
(fast/volatile and slow/non-volatile) has been a long-standing
premise of most computer systems, influencing the design
of OS components, including file systems, virtual memory,
scheduling, execution models, and even their APIs. Emerging
resistive memory technologies such as phase-change memory
(PCM) and memristors have the potential to provide large,
fast, non-volatile memory systems, changing the assumptions
that motivated the design of current operating systems. This
paper examines the implications of non-volatile memories on a
number of OS mechanisms, functions, and properties.
1 Introduction
New memory technologies promise game-changing fea-
tures whose impact felt broadly, from embedded comput-
ers to mobile devices to datacenters. For example, phase-
|
