CRII: OAC: Towards Efficient Memory Management on Terabyte-Scale CXL-Enabled Tiered Memory Systems

College Of William And Mary, Williamsburg VA

Investigators

Abstract

As modern computing environments evolve, the advent of Compute Express Link (CXL) and multitiered memory systems introduces significant advancements and complexities in memory management. Traditional memory management methods, primarily designed for uniform memory systems, fall short in these advanced, multi-tiered environments. This project proposes an Operating System (OS) level solution for memory management in CXL-enabled systems to maximize performance for various applications without requiring application modifications. This research aligns with national interests by enhancing technological capabilities, contributing to scientific progress, and potentially impacting national health and prosperity through improved computational infrastructure. This initiative delves into developing a robust memory management framework for terabyte-scale, CXL-enabled tiered memory systems. The research tackles these challenges through two main approaches: (1) An advanced page allocation mechanism that optimizes data distribution across different memory types, considering bandwidth and latency, functioning effectively without prior knowledge of application behavior. (2) A heuristic method for managing all memory pages, guided by accurate, low-overhead memory region-based profiling across the entire memory hierarchy. The proposed solution is noteworthy for its ability to address both latency and bandwidth considerations in multi-tiered memory systems, surpassing the capabilities of current approaches. The intellectual merit of this research lies in its potential to significantly enhance OS memory management and the understanding of heterogeneous memory systems. By addressing the complexities of managing diverse memory types on a large scale, the project is expected to dramatically improve the scalability and efficiency of computational infrastructures, enabling more complex data processing tasks. The broader impacts encompass facilitating the wider adoption of tiered memory systems, enhancing the scalability of computational infrastructures, and potentially influencing future operating system designs for managing heterogeneous memory systems at scale. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.