Distributed shared memory

Computer memory architecture Distributed shared memory implementation. In computer science, distributed shared memory (DSM) is a form of memory architecture where physically separated memories can be addressed as a single shared address space. The term "shared" does not mean that there is a single centralized memory, but that the address space is shared—i.e., the same physical address on two processors refers to the same location in memory. Distributed global address space (DGAS), is a similar term for a wide class of software and hardware implementations, in which each node of a cluster has access to shared memory in addition to each node's private (i.e., not shared) memory. Overview DSM can be achieved via software as well as hardware. Hardware examples include cache coherence circuits and network interface controllers. There are three ways of implementing DSM: page-based approach using virtual memory, shared-variable approach using routines to access shared variables and object-based approach, ideally accessing shared data through object-oriented discipline. DSM scales well with a large number of nodes and its message passing is hidden. It can handle complex and large database