Method of reducing contention of a highly contended lock protecting multiple data items
US7065763B1 · kind B1 · utility
Assignee
Inventors
Key dates
| Filing date | Sep 29, 2000 |
| Grant date | Jun 20, 2006 |
| Priority date | — |
| Expiry date | Jun 9, 2023 |
Classification
- Technology area (CPC G)Physics
- CPC primaryG06F9/526
- WIPO fieldComputer technology
- WIPO sectorElectrical engineering
Abstract
Featured is a method or process for reducing contention of a highly contended software lock(s) that is protecting multiple data items, where the software has a plurality of code paths accessing the data items. The method includes creating additional partition locks to protect subsets of the data items protected by the existing global lock. Such a method further includes acquiring all partition locks and the global lock, wherever a global lock would have been acquired to protect data. The method also includes identifying one or more heavily used code paths and determining which data items are touched by the identified one or more heavily used code paths. These data items are then moved into a partition, if they were not partitioned earlier. The locking requirements for each of the identified one or more heavily used code paths are optimized to match the reduced locking requirements because of the partitioned data items. In other words the locking requirements are reduced so only the locks for the partitions including the data items that touch the code path are acquired. In more specific embodiments, the so-modified software is evaluated to determine if there is an acceptable increas…
Source: USPTO / EPO open patent data. Objective bibliographic and citation counts.