Distributed shared memory: a survey of issues and algorithms

An overview of distributed shared memory (DSM) issues is presented. Memory coherence, design choices, and implementation methods are included. The discussion of design choices covers structure and granularity, coherence semantics, scalability, and heterogeneity. Implementation issues concern data location and access, the coherence protocol, replacement strategy, and thrashing. Algorithms that support process synchronization and memory management are discussed.>